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#8 Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
This angle started hot in the fall of 2017, but by January, it had descended into endless, repeat, and ultimately meaningless segments that consumed SmackDown and overshadowed the other angles on the show. The blue brand was in a bad state at the start of the year, and the omnipresence of Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Shane McMahon was one of the primary reasons why.
Week after week for months, this story continued, without a clear structure or a discernible destination. It felt like the writers just wanted to get through each episode of SmackDown and move on to the next one.
The feud was saved from being much worse by the last-minute and shocking return of Daniel Bryan, who would go on to give it a mercy killing at WrestleMania 34. If not for him, it probably would have ended on a note as bland as we were getting week after week.
