5 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Feb 6)

1. Going Nowhere

This week's opening segment was typically solid fare. Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan's performances were on point, as was that of AJ Styles, who worked the crowd well throughout.

There wasn't much wrong with their promos, and Shane's accusation that his General Manager is living vicariously through Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens made sense. The problem is that this story is going absolutely nowhere. Bryan and McMahon's tension has been building for months, yet we're still no further along from where we were post-Clash Of Champions, when the duo squabbled like pre-school children during Zayn and Owens vs. Orton and Nakamura. These segments present their existing heat, but do nothing to further the storyline, and at this stage, they're nothing more than filler.

There's a good tale somewhere beneath the muck, and if WWE had chosen to condense this into a sharper 2-3 month program, these complaints wouldn't exist. Unfortunately, they kicked it off way too early. It looks like we're building towards some kind of WrestleMania showdown, but as enjoyable as Sami and Kevin's heel run has been, it's a shame we're being made to wait so long for the payoff.

Again, the program is still producing passable television, but "passable" isn't good enough. SmackDown used to be WWE's most enjoyable weekly show. Now, it's largely skippable, and bland yarns like this are to blame.