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The final stop on the road to WrestleMania, SmackDown put out a better, but still underwhelming go-home show than its Monday night counterpart. A few storylines advanced, but it dropped the ball on a key one.
How did the stars of Tuesday nights fare on the last stop before the big one? Let's take a look.
Winners: Shane McMahon, Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, and Sami Zayn
It seems that all of SmackDown's creative resources have been put into this feud. Thankfully, Daniel Bryan's presence helps things along greatly. Without him, it would be the same as it was before.
Owens and Zayn carried their invasion segment well, outpacing their rivals, who only did as well as they did because of the aforementioned Daniel Bryan. Still, the segment successfully built excitement for the tag team match on Sunday.
Winners: Charlotte and Asuka
Charlotte looked good again in her match with Natalya, with her physical athleticism on full display. Asuka's entrance and their subsequent staredown got the crowd as loud as it had been all night. The segment was short but did a good enough job in advertising the match as the long-awaited showdown between the two most dominant players in the women's division.
Carmella also lurked in the reeds. Her involvement in the match itself would be very unwelcome, but it does at least add a hook that some fans might find themselves invested in, like greater doubt about the ending.
Loser: Rusev
In a poor imitation of the fantastic Balor/Rollins match from Monday, Rusev defeated Jinder Mahal in a lackluster match. By typical WWE booking standards, this means he's unlikely to win on Sunday, though the crowd will be clamoring for him to do just that. It was a poor use of the one element that makes this title match interesting.
Randy Orton appeared out of nowhere with an RKO and soon found himself staring down Bobby Roode as the segment closed. Dueling chants of "RKO" and "glorious" were heard.
Losers: Everyone in that tag team match
This was a really poor attempt at filler to advertise the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is itself filler. One has to feel for the wrestlers crammed into that contest. Not everyone can have a "WrestleMania Moment" (TM), after all.
Baron Corbin would eventually pick up the win for his "team" with an End of Days, standing tall at the end. This probably means he won't be the first two-time battle royal winner.
Losers: The Usos, New Day, and Bludgeon Brothers
Why am I putting this old promo here? Because WWE didn't even bother uploading last night's segment between these three teams on their channel. A meaningless talk-up of the potential to get a "free WrestleMania," The Usos, New Day, and even worse, Bludgeon Brothers, just stood there, pretending that none of their brutal rivalry over the past month happened.
It was an inexcusable waste when the blue brand should have been promoting one of the most eagerly anticipated matches on the WrestleMania card.
Winners: AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura
We finally got some more hooks to this story on the go-home show, though even those were only tepid, meaning these two are winners, but barely.
Nakamura talked up the fact that AJ Styles is emotional, and he's waiting for the Phenomenal One to make a mistake. That seemed to show in their tag team match, with AJ Styles refusing to tag his rival and hitting the Phenomenal Forearm.
Styles would then go on to repay Nakamura's favor from last week, nearly hitting the Phenomenal Forearm, just as he was almost hit with the Kinshasa last week.
As far as WrestleMania title builds go, it's all very underwhelming, but at least it was something.
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