4 Ups And Downs From Last Night's WWE Smackdown (Jan 29)

1. Daniel Bryan Beat Kane Again To Finally End This Rivalry (We Hope)

It's been three straight weeks on Smackdown we've seen Bryan wrestle Kane. There was a DQ finish two weeks ago, Bryan won clean last week and this time there was a Casket Match stipulation for the match. The announcers spoke about how it was their last match, so that probably means last match for about three months. They were given 23 minutes for the match, which is one of the longer main events you're going to see for a TV match. Two commercials were included too. For much of the match, the commentators were talking like Bryan was some big underdog while Kane was a threat even though he almost never wins anymore. Bryan won clean with the running knee to the face that sent Kane right into the casket. Bryan closed it shut and then stood on top of it while celebrating. Give Kane a lot of credit for this performance. He's 47 years old and still very capable of having entertaining matches. It's not like his legacy is that of a guy with a lot of amazing matches, but at least he looks pretty good out there. Will he retire this year? Probably not. He can keep going if he wants. The match was slightly above average and the crowd was hot for everything that Bryan did. He's clearly the most popular guy in WWE right now. It's not even close, really. What WWE has to do is find him a storyline that will make the fans happy because they want to root for the guy in something that isn't against Kane. Please move on from it. Smackdown was average this week. It needs to be better on a more consistent basis.