5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (May 19)

1. Asylum Segment Needed Heel Dominance

Dean Ambrose Chris Jericho
WWE.com

It's an arguable point, but it may have been smarter for WWE to keep Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho out of the cage on SmackDown. The babyface out thought the heel here, which is fine, but Jericho was portrayed like a coward who is outmatched going into his Asylum Match against Dean at Extreme Rules.

That makes the pay-per-view collision more challenging, because fans have already had the visual of Ambrose overwhelming Jericho inside the steel structure. Surely, that was the intended pay-off for Extreme Rules, rather than effectively occurring days before on SmackDown?

It was different to have Ambrose disguise himself as a worker setting up the cage, but something about the whole segment made Jericho look like he was in over his head. Given that he's already lost to Ambrose at Payback in a singles bout, that doesn't really make the heel look threatening.

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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.