8 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Sept 18)

1. Not This Again...

After initially pulling away from straight-up heel Becky Lynch following her SummerSlam turn's universal rejection, WWE are now leaning all the way into it, with last night's championship celebration painting 'The Lass Kicker' in her darkest light yet.

Last week brought rumours of a big Hell In A Cell double-turn. This bred hopes of Becky as Steve Austin, and Charlotte Flair as Bret Hart, but Dave Meltzer has since revealed that the PPV was intended to once again paint the deposed 'Queen' as the babyface. This shows that they're still at odds with their fans when it comes to the angle. Though the last few weeks seemingly painted Lynch as the anti-hero, and leaned into Charlotte's defining sense of entitlement, it was all a ruse. We got it wrong. This is still very much Evil Becky vs. Noble Charlotte, and it absolutely sucks.

Perhaps it'd be easier if Flair generated any kind of sympathy, but no. She's the female Roman Reigns: a strong performer miscast as the heroine opposite a "wrongdoer" people actually want to root for.

Crowd reactions to last night's confrontation were muted, and understandably so, because they're being fed undigestible nonsense by the creative department. That's not to say the segment itself was entirely bad (we'll get to the good later), but it's an unsurprising shame that WWE are going back down this road.

And now on to the positives...