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

4. Silence Over Violence

Sami Zayn at least earned his beating from The Undertaker after a delivering a slew of decent lines towards 'The Deadman'. This wasn't an interruption on par with AJ Styles of Stone Cold Steve Austin, but 'The Underdog From The Underdog' requests to replace 'Taker were charmingly in keeping with his delusions of grandeur. As are most of his asides when working as Shinsuke Nakamura's sidekick. Which...he subsequently couldn't do because of the prior segment.

SmackDown Live's roster is loaded with warm bodies that probably a) would have enjoyed talking themselves into a sh*tkicking from The Undertaker and b) been grateful of the promo time in the 'World's Most Famous Arena', yet that role was given to Zayn exactly one segment before he was required to play the role he's worked diligently on over the past few weeks.

A man who probably wouldn't have asked for a microphone was Shinsuke Nakamura, based on the language barrier gag with Corey Graves the company had to craft. WWE's table is bullish enough without having to try and interject in a second language, but this wasn't any kind of canvas for the so-called 'Artist' to work on ahead of Sunday's tepid scrap with The Miz.

Michael Hamflett

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

See more from Michael