8 Ups & 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (10 Sept)

Chadison Square Garden.

Sami Zayn The Undertaker
WWE.com

It's all change on SmackDown soon, with the blue brand just a month away from moving back to Friday Nights, celebrating its 20th Anniversary and hopefully - for the sake of WWE's financials - doing big numbers on big new home Fox. The lingering pressure of the shift hasn't quite started to show, but some particularly potent editions of Monday Night Raw have recently left Tuesday's sister show looking a little underdone.

Heading into the second consecutive night at Madison Square Garden, WWE were hoping another powerful edition of the flagship could convince those on the fence from the local area to treat themselves to one of the many tickets still available ahead of time, not least with the promise of seeing The Undertaker in the flesh and the possibility of seeing Bray Wyatt's evil Fiend tear at that very flesh following a tantalising Firefly Fun House tease.

Or, not quite. Bray's alter-ego did dark match duties against The B-Team, presumably so fans could nod sagely about the Rotundo brothers going to war, but what else instead emerged from Tuesday's event?

Serving also as the go-home show for Sunday's Clash Of Champions, there was plenty to address before the titleholders strode into the weekend supercard, but could the company make it two for two in the 'World's Most Famous Arena?'

(Don't fret, Andy Murray will be back next week)

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 7 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 30 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz", Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 50,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, 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. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett