6 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (25 Oct)
1. Crossed Wires
WWE.com
Nikki Cross is SmackDown's top babyface now as yet another supposed title challenger moves into the role by virtue of doing nothing and/or being the default selection. And more's the pity too - Cross is hardworking and well-liked by a portion of the audience, but none of it means anything when so few of the characters seem to actually exist or act like real human beings.
Sonya Deville lit a small fire in her corner of the internet with a quality promo earlier this week at the expense of half of the division, but it didn't matter a jot on SmackDown because it's simply not her turn. The wires controlling the division were so painfully visible that nothing mattered. Not Cross' pedestrian victory over Mandy Rose, not the total lack of Alexa Bliss to help refine her act, not Bayley and Sasha Banks' broadly enjoyable critique of her from commentary.
Give Deville's promo a click there - she's bang right in both her assessment of the quality of the female league and the fact that it's being put out to pasture at the moment. Every single performer that shared the screen here deserved better than what they received in this segment.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast.
He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.
