Ups and downs of SmackDown

 

 

Although it was not the most eventful SmackDown in recent weeks, it undoubtedly did enough to carry on the build as the road to WrestleMania rolls on. There wasn’t a lot that happened from a storyline perspective, but there were some important matches as well as one major title match that was made official. The most talked about news this week is the neck injury of Big E, who suffered a major accident in his match on SmackDown. He gave confirmation that his neck is broken, thus ending his WrestleMania dream this year.

 

With that said, let’s read about the best and worst of an interesting episode this week:

 

 

#1. Best: The Pat McAfee-Austin Theory feud on SmackDown

 

RAW Superstar Austin Theory will spend the remaining of his WrestleMania season on SmackDown, as he was Vince McMahon’s chosen opponent to face Pat McAfee. If one provocation last week wasn’t sufficient, this week, Theory made McAfee’s blood boil enough for him to launch an assault. Everything about this story is nicely done. From the genuine concern of Michael Cole, who kept asking him to keep cool, to Austin Theory’s obvious and infuriating provocation, this has all the makings of a classic.The sole thing that would make it better would be if it brings McMahon back to WrestleMania, at ringside for Theory.

 

#2. Worst: Butch and the Big E injury

 

Pete Dunne apparently made his official main roster debut this week on SmackDown. In a bad move, he has now been renamed as “Butch” and is aligned with Sheamus and Ridge Holland. It’s a very stereotypical name and character and feels disrespectful to Dunne, an already-established veteran of the business. It will be interesting to see how this goes, but the fact that his name is now “Butch” gives the same vibe as when WALTER was renamed “Gunther”. It goes without saying that Big E’s injury was the worst part of the episode this week.

 

#3. Best: The road to WrestleMania for the SmackDown Tag Team Champions

 

Last week, the SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos attacked Rick Boogs and Shinsuke Nakamura from behind while they were making their entrance. It was a clear set-up for a WrestleMania match, and it was the duo of Boogs and Nakamura who confronted the champions this week. The Usos have essentially cleared out the SmackDown Tag Team division, and Rick Boogs and Shinsuke Nakamura are still left. It will be interesting to see in which direction it goes and whether they can dethrone the record-breaking tag team champions at WrestleMania. Boogs had an excellent performance and victory against Jey Uso to secure his and Nakamura’s spot at The Show of Shows.

 

#4. Worst: The SmackDown Women’s Championship feud

 

It isn’t official yet, but Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair is expected to headline Night One of WrestleMania 38. There’s only one major problem – nothing about this feud has been exciting so far. Every time the feud is shown on TV, it takes down the interest levels. Hopefully, the match itself will be good in quality and that should be sufficient for fans to forget this below-average build-up to the women’s title match.

 

#5. Best: The hilarious opening segment

 

Roman Reigns, the face of WWE, wasn’t present on the blue brand this week. Instead, the show opened with the WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, and his ex-advocate Paul Heyman standing across the ramp as they exchanged words. Lesnar seemed to realize that Heyman had no security this week and started running after him, causing the veteran figure to flee as fast as possible. Fortunately for him, he made it to his car on time as The Beast Incarnate was stopped, but the humorous timing of the segment was impeccable. Brock Lesnar continues to prove how he can entertain fans effortlessly with his relatively new character.