Best and Worst of SmackDown before Royal Rumble: Popular Superstar keeps losing, Big mistakes made in the main event (January 29th, 2021)

#3 Worst: Extremely random pacing and flow on SmackDown

AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan

What we didn't understand about SmackDown before the Royal Rumble was the random pacing that the show had and the overall flow - which just felt off. What we mean to say is that there were so many random things thrown into the episode, it had no actual consistency or method of keeping fans hooked on to SmackDown.

We had a bunch of RAW Superstars come over and make their presence known, and it was explained as the "quarterly brand-to-brand invitational". There were segments involving Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Cesaro, and after that, there was an interaction between Big E and The Miz and John Morrison.

... Let @TheRealMorrison explain "short selling."#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/NZfG06YAyY

— WWE (@WWE) January 30, 2021

All of it played out into a clustered main event (which we'll get to later). Usually, RAW is the show that lacks the pace, flow and structure, but this week, SmackDown followed that same route, for some reason. We hope that episodes aren't like this going forward.

"@ShinsukeN, let's be honest for one second, the best work you've ever done in WWE has been with me." 😶#SmackDown @SamiZayn pic.twitter.com/G9RKbPYo26

— WWE (@WWE) January 30, 2021

The build to the main event of SmackDown seemed too thrown-together, and we wouldn't be surprised if it was all put together at the last minute.