5 takeaways from the final Smackdown Live of the year
Circa 2016. WWE Smackdown Live presented the "Wild Card Finals", probably the best two hours of sports entertainment WWE has ever produced. The final show of 2017 was not as good as its predecessor, but certainly provided ample enjoyment for the fans.
As was the case of RAW this week, a fantastic wrestling crowd made a decent show much more worthwhile. Shane McMahon seems to be angering every person in the locker-room, as Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles seem to not be very happy with the Commissioner.
Royal Rumble is still five weeks away, which usually means little to no story-line advancements. However, this week's show had a plethora of fantastic moments. We look at five such major talking points from this week.
#5 A thunderous Rusev Day
Rusev and Aiden English have been the most over duo in WWE in the recent weeks, and this was firmly established in Chicago. Rusev Day was chanted more times than CM Punk, in Chicago!
Daniel Bryan's opening segment saw some entertaining bits by the three tag teams, who later produced a fantastic triple threat match. Smackdown's tag team division has been the best part of 2017 in WWE, and it continued to impress this week as well.
Rusev is mindbogglingly over with the WWE Universe. His gimmick is already drawing comparisons to how Daniel Bryan's YES movement was over with the crowd. If this doesn't guarantee a monstrous push for the Bulgarian Brute, then what will?