5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (April 28)

1. The Intercontinental Champ Loses Before Payback

Roman Reigns The Miz
WWE.com

At Payback, both Roman Reigns and The Miz will defend their respective titles. For the heel, a match with Cesaro over the WWE Intercontinental Title beckons, but he isn't going into the contest with much momentum. On SmackDown, he was handily vanquished by a dominant Reigns.

As the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Reigns definitely shouldn't be losing, but it doesn't make The Miz look great as secondary champ if he goes down clean. If anything, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson should have interfered, giving Miz an excuse afterwards for the defeat.

It's nit-picking, but The Miz has a big pay-per-view match of his own come Sunday. Beating him clean as a whistle, even in what proved to be a competitive affair, didn't really seem like the best strategy from the writers. Someone had to lose to Reigns, but did it have to be the Intercontinental Champion?

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.