8 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Oct 16)

1. The Sheer Number Of Raw Stars Generally

Triple H Stephanie McMahon
WWE.com

Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods were arguably the only new Raw stars who had any sort of excuse for sticking around to work the latest SmackDown. They teamed with Big E in a New Day "farewell" match, and that's fine. However, most others had zero reason to be there.

The aforementioned Jeff Hardy was bad enough, but why was Braun Strowman here when he had been traded to Raw at the start of the week? The big man was one of Raw's top picks on Monday, and he could've done without some hastily-booked Universal Title shot out of nowhere here.

It was weird to hear Stephanie McMahon, Triple H, Daniel Bryan and the announcers talk about SmackDown's new era when there were so many dudes from the 'other' show just hanging around. Sheamus was another, although he also (sort of) fit into the New Day's goodbye.

Odd.

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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.