7 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Jan 22)

6. Joe & Ali Leave Plenty In The Tank

Mustafa Ali vs. Samoa Joe didn't need to a be a barnburner. It was their first meeting between the ropes, and likely won't be the last. Thus, the best course of action would have been for these two smart workers to leave plenty of big spots for whenever their eventual blow-off match comes around, and that's exactly what they did.

This was textbook midcard TV wrestling: solid, functional, neat, and tidy. Joe controlled things with a routine heat segment early on, before Ali came back into the bout with the right amount of fire, fighting with a chip on his shoulder after last week's ambush. He looked to be on the verge of winning with the 054 until Joe took him out, then scored the Coquina Clutch for the victory, meaning Mustafa still has this major hurdle to overcome on his road to the top.

That's good storytelling. Ali shouldn't be defeating an upper-midcard gatekeeper like Joe early in this run, despite his fortuitous tag team pinfall over Daniel Bryan the month. Hotshotting isn't the answer. He'll almost certainly win the feud in the end, but WWE, for now, are right to stack the obstacles.