5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Oct 8)

1. Nikki Jobs To Charlotte Before Hell In A Cell

Nikki Bella will challenge Charlotte for the WWE Divas Title on the upcoming Hell In A Cell Pay-Per-View. Charlotte was the woman responsible for ending Nikki's lengthy reign as Divas Champion, meaning there's an instant story for the writing team to work with from the get-go. That makes what happened on Smackdown harder to stomach. Bella tapped out whilst locked in the Figure 8 by Charlotte. Worse yet, he did so in a 6-woman tag-team match. That means both her sister, Brie and Alicia Fox were there to provide padding for her reputation. It was a baffling decision to have the title contender lose on Smackdown, because it doesn't do much to build anticipation for the title rematch on the PPV. There's no logic in having the defending champion fend off their main challenger before facing them one-on-one. Surely either Brie or Alicia Fox would have been the better choice to submit? This would have allowed Nikki to cut promos relaying the message that the same fate won't befall her (again) at Hell In A Cell.