WWE SmackDown (8/11/19): 3 things we learned
This week's episode of SmackDown continued the buildup to Survivor Series 2019 with an average show. After last week's NXT invasion, fans expected another great show, but that didn't happen. WWE has to step up their programming else they could alienate even the most loyal fans.
In this week's episode, a few interesting things happened. Sami Zayn continued his quest to convince Daniel Bryan to join the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura. Much like the last time Zayn tried it, there was no response from Bryan. Instead, the lights went out as The Fiend appeared backstage and attacked Bryan.
Meanwhile, Sasha Banks became the captain of the SmackDown women's team at Survivor Series. Dana Brooke and Carmella also booked their spots in the match after their victory against Fire and Desire.
The Revival lost their titles to the New Day, who won their seventh tag titles and got their first win over The Revival. With that said, there are a few things we learned from the show. So let's look at the three things we learned from this week's episode of SmackDown.
#3 They don't have anything planned for Ali
Ali is a great wrestler who's also charismatic and can easily get fans to cheer him on. But he has found himself losing every opportunity presented to him due to WWE's inconsistent booking of his character. After getting injured earlier this year, he lost his opportunity to Kofi Kingston, who went on to become WWE Champion.
Ever since Ali came back to WWE, he has been shown in various vignettes cutting promos about making a change and helping the world. However, his actual presentation has been far from that and doesn't seem like the guy is going to change anything. Besides being part of the victorious Team Hogan at Crown Jewel, Ali has pretty much not won a single match for a while.
That's not a good sign and indicates that WWE doesn't have anything planned for him at the moment. It looks like they rushed him up with those vignettes without having any long term plan. They may have scrapped the angle now which affects Ali and puts another block in his way.