The biggest winners and losers from last night's SmackDown (January 28)

Last night's edition of SmackDown fell short of the high standards we've expected to come from the blue brand. This was a sagging episode, starting off on a high (but ominous) note and declining as it went on until the end. Several segments felt unnecessary and mistimed, with not enough time going to some important angles.

Truth be told, it wasn't a good way for the blue brand to get started in the home stretch to WrestleMania. Granted, since both Rumble challengers are going for Raw titles, there's work to be done.

Who took the most and least out of last night's show?

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Loser: Becky Lynch

Becky Lynch emerged as a loser for only one reason - it appears that WWE is already getting started in shoehorning Charlotte Flair into the already-announced Becky Lynch vs. Ronda Rousey matchup, with Lynch's leg injury possibly being a selling point.

It's a terrible idea. It might have been palatable before, but after Monday night's magic, it's the wrong move. If this "new era" is supposedly about listening to fans, they made themselves clear on Raw. They want Lynch vs. Rousey one on one. It's more dramatic.

"Ronnie, you never came looking for me to prove that you're the baddest, so I've come looking for you to prove that you're not."

Charlotte Flair or a leg injury to Lynch isn't needed. That one, single line is all that you need on the road to WrestleMania.

Becky Lynch remains the most popular star in the company at the moment, but after last night, it appears that her moment is indeed going to be watered down because WWE is adamant that the perennial company favorite, Charlotte Flair, needs to take part in the match.

Let's hope they abandon this course. There's a better alternative.

Losers: Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev

Rusev lost the United States Championship on his first defense after a month. Shinsuke Nakamura gained it back to lose it to R-Truth two days later. R-Truth. In 2019.

Then Rusev randomly turned heel, because WWE seems adamantly against having popular male babyfaces.

Then the two former rivals looked like they formed a tag team, two days after Nakamura caused a kayfabe injury to Rusev's wife.

It's bizarre. That's the only way to describe it. It feels more like Raw booking than SmackDown booking. And this went on far too long, taking too much time from other things that could have potentially been on the show.

If R-Truth is a transitional champion to drop it to Andrade "Cien" Almas, that would be the proper outcome, but it really made SmackDown's mid-card look horrible. This was a black hole in the middle of SmackDown that detracted from the show.

Winners: The Usos and Heavy Machinery

This was a decent, if overlong, tag team match. Thankfully, the automatic rematch clause appears truly dead as The Bar failed to secure another title shot for Elimination Chamber. The Usos won the match, becoming the #1 contenders to The Miz and Shane McMahon's newly-won tag team titles, which finally puts them back on pay per view.

Heavy Machinery might have walked away as the biggest winners of this match, though. Their act got decently over with the audience last night, and they secured a clean pinfall victory on the New Day, elevating them into the upper echelon of the division immediately, should WWE decide to follow up on it.

It was a nice way to show off the recent NXT callups without pushing them to the moon too quickly. Heavy Machinery might be one of those acts that does better on the main roster than at Full Sail.

Winners: Everyone in this segment

Daniel Bryan continues to be the best heel on the main roster. His reveal of his eco-friendly WWE title was great. He even managed to get a hypothetical cow named Daisy over.

Then we learned that Bryan would face five men in an Elimination Chamber match - AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Jeff Hardy, Mustafa Ali, and Samoa Joe. The segment was mistimed with an unwelcome commercial break after Orton's entrance. That dragged it down, but Joe quickly picked it back up.

Even Rowan looked good here as the silent heavy for Bryan, quietly nodding in agreement about how ignorant the audience was when they screamed to burn the new title down.

Bryan is doing some of the best work of his career and now he has five challengers to contend with. It's a welcome break from the endless involvement of AJ Styles alone in the title picture.

Loser: Asuka

This was just puzzling. Two days after Asuka made Becky Lynch tap out, she was off the show entirely. While there were no women's matches last night and the company is trying to build up the women's Elimination Chamber match, it was still a poor choice.

Did the mid-card ridiculousness, the tag team match, or the Miz and Shane's segments need to go on as long as they did? Asuka could have easily obliterated somebody like Zelina Vega in much less time than those segments had, or even just had a cameo backstage subtly mocking Charlotte Flair, potentially setting up the start of a more palatable rematch at WrestleMania (with Asuka winning this time, hopefully).

Perhaps the company is trying to protect Becky as much as possible, and sometimes, there just isn't enough time to get all the big names on the show in two hours. Randy Orton was gone for several weeks. Charlotte Flair wasn't there a couple of weeks ago.

These things sometimes happen, but they better not happen next week.