5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Feb 10)
Jey Uso returns; Sami Zayn confronts Paul Heyman; WWE reveals new title contender.
A moment of silence, please.
WWE's greatest story is nearing its end, but it's been one hell of a ride. This week, Roman Reigns was absent from SmackDown, and the company still managed to produce the goods with Sami Zayn and all the other moving parts in The Bloodline. That shows the strength of this saga, and it bodes well for Sami long-term (fingers crossed on that).
One other thing became clear when watching though: Triple H needs his creative team to apply this same attention to detail to other parts of the show. There are some seriously paper-thin/one-note characters on Friday nights, especially in the women's division, and there's just no excuse for that when everyone now knows how good the writing can be.
Charlotte Flair is still painful as a babyface, Lacey Evans has next-to-no depth, ex-champs like Liv Morgan are spinning their wheels - that needs to be sorted out ASAP. On the plus side, maybe one major star's return can revitalise Shayna Baszler's sagging fortunes heading into WrestleMania 39.
Here's all the good and bad from SmackDown's penultimate stop pre-Elimination Chamber.