WWE SmackDown: 3 surprising questions from this week’s episode (March 05, 2019)

While SmackDown Live has worked wonders to establish its matches for Fastlane unlike Raw, its last episode before the event wasn’t as great as most would have expected.

WWE took some questionable booking decision by having another match between Mandy Rose and Naomi and setting up another match between Ricochet and Aleister Black and The Bar.

The Bar was once again defeated which now puts a question mark over their potency on the blue brand of late as the former SmackDown Tag Team Champions.

Apart from that, the segment to close out the night also raised many questions, and one wonders what it was trying to achieve.

Other than that, there was a surprising new champion for the brand and a surprise return which was definitely a welcome move.

In this article, we will look at three spots which were surprising and raise a few questions for the future.

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#3 Why did Samoa Joe win the United States Championship?

Joe won his first main roster championship on Tuesday night

Similar to last week, this week again R-Truth took to the ring with Carmella for this week's United States Championship Open Challenge. He made it clear that he would make his childhood hero John Cena proud tonight. Lacey Evans interrupted the proceedings, doing the walk-through she has become known for.

Eventually, the match was set between Truth, Samoa Joe, Andrade, and Rey Mysterio, as all three men answered the challenge separately.

Samoa Joe seemed completely different and managed to wear down all the other superstars. While it seemed as though Rey Mysterio and Andrade had an opening to win the championship, Joe took down Andrade to take home his first main roster championship.

This was a surprising win as Joe has been booked in numerous title matches over the past two years but has never come out on top even with a good storyline going.

Last night, Joe entered the match as the least convincing challenger since Andrade and Mysterio both had better cases to win the title.

Samoa Joe’s win drops him back to the mid-cards after his constant struggles to win the top championships on both the brands.

#2 Why did Mustafa Ali return to help Kevin Owens?

This new partnership makes little sense

As Kevin Owens was on his way to take to the ring for his match against Eric Rowan, the heel and WWE champion Daniel Bryan attacked Owens at ringside.

After slamming the returning superstar to the floor, they stomped away at him until another returning superstar made the save.

While most would have expected Sami Zayn to return and make the save, it was the Heart of SmackDown Mustafa Ali who did so.

His onslaught did not last long as Bryan caught him with a running knee, but Owens soon recovered and delivered a stunner to Bryan and sent the heels back.

It was odd to have Mustafa Ali return and save Kevin Owens, as Ali was on the rise just a few weeks ago and in the WWE Championship picture himself. Kofi Kingston’s rise came due to Mustafa Ali’s untimely injury.

With Mustafa Ali coming to Owens’ aide, the big question is whether Ali returned to actually side up with Owens or to target the WWE Champion.

#1 Why did Becky and Charlotte have another confrontation?

Becky Lynch dis-armed Charlotte

A couple of nights ago on Raw, the three top women of WWE delivered a wonderful segment. The segment not only built up the clash between Becky Lynch and Charlotte for Fastlane, but also for a future match between Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey, or all three women.

While WWE should have ended the confrontations there before Fastlane, they decided to use Becky Lynch and Charlotte once again for seemingly no good reason at all.

As Charlotte mocked Becky and her injured knee, Becky reminded the WWE Universe that she has beaten Charlotte numerous times before, and can do so again.

Charlotte attacked Becky and her bad knee, but Becky staved off the attack and applied the Disarm-Her. Flair escaped to the sanctuary of the floor and held her arm in pain as Lynch stood tall to close out the show.

The segment failed to establish anything whatsoever, and just put Becky a bit over once again after being beaten down by Ronda Rousey a night before.

WWE could have done without this segment, especially to close out the night, and instead let Fastlane do the trick for this rivalry. Why WWE went ahead with this segment again remains a big question.