5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (22 Aug - Results & Review)

1. WWE Stiff Their Own Main Event

The company spent so much time having Becky dig out U2 lead singer Bono for wearing sunglasses indoors that they stiffed their own main event out of minutes. An opening promo train involving Lynch, Stratton, Jax and Cargill was saved by Becky heeling on Dublin, but...why give the segment so much time then run out of it later in the night?

That's poor planning and time management from WWE.

In truth, the match felt strange going in. Why is Jade saving Tiffany from anything when they're rivals and clearly don't like one another? Further, why would Lynch not just stroll out of the place once Nick Aldis claimed that Raw GM Adam Pearce demanded she wrestle? Logic was all over the place. The match was happening just because. Fine, but don't stomp all over it come bell time then!

WWE barely handed the quartet any time at all. The result was a bout which didn’t feel worthy of the main event slot for TV whatsoever. Again, it kinda seemed like the scriptwriters stacked SmackDown with too much content, then struggled for time, which is weird when they’re so used to doing this stuff. If you watched with ad breaks, then there was practically nothing to this headliner at all.

Shows like Raw and SmackDown have been headlined by house show-tastic tag matches in international markets previously. People expect them. They also expect WWE to come up with something a little more satisfying than Nia locking Tiffany in a chinlock for 45 seconds during a short match.

Just saying.