5 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Mar 14)
Bray Wyatt is reborn, but Shane McMahon & AJ Styles steal the show.
With just two weeks of television left before WrestleMania 33, all of SmackDown's major matches are finally in place. Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt was put together last week, but last night saw The Miz & Maryse vs. John Cena & Nikki Bella and Shane McMahon vs. AJ Styles finally coming together, rubber-stamping the blue brand's top three bouts for Orlando.
All three rivalries enjoyed a healthy presence on last night's show, but it was Shane vs. AJ that took centre stage. The duo were all over the show, book-ending with AJ's opening promo and Shane's closing diatribe, with a brutal parking lot assault sandwiched in-between. It was a mixed bag of content, however, as while most of the storyline's contributions were strong, it wound-up derailing SmackDown in a major way.
The other two rivalries escalated through words, not physicality, while SmackDown's women played a prominent role as the build to their multi-person WrestleMania match continues. American Alpha returned to television after several weeks in the abyss, meanwhile, but the likes of Dean Ambrose and Luke Harper were nowhere to be found.
The good outweighed the bad on this week's SmackDown, but the show still hit a couple of major snags. How do they all stack up? Let's take a look...