5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (30 Jan - Results & Review)

2. More Painful Setup

Here it is.

Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss passive aggressively said they’d throw the other one over the top rope in the women's Rumble before Judgment Day came out. That formatting was practically identical to the men’s segment which opened the show. Replace JD with The Vision and you had much the same thing with Nick Aldis sticking Raw stars in a match.

Honestly, WWE management could’ve just stuck the match in the ring and announced it with a graphic. The women's tag didn’t need this time killing setup at all. So, we’re supposed to believe that Liv Morgan, Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez walked out to...pretend they were going to fight Flair and Bliss before dashing back through the curtain? Why?

These match setups need work. They're such minor details, but minor details within the framework of any wrestling show are important. Running back to back on practically the exact same thing is just sheer laziness from the writing team too. Someone really should've spotted this when going through the episode with a fine tooth comb. Maybe they didn't bother to do that; maybe Road Dogg was regaling everybody with obscure stories about the 'Attitude Era' instead.

Seriously, one of the things people expect when they tune into any show is that the characters involved have believable intentions. Judgment Day wouldn't simply march out to chortle their way through some rotten dialogue when it's clearly a complete and utter waste of their time. If Liv, Roxanne and/or Raquel weren't in the house to wrestle to begin with, then why were they even in attendance at all?