2 things that went wrong on the March 18 episode of SmackDown

As mentioned earlier, the WWE product has, generally speaking, lacked any sort of spark as we inch closer to WrestleMania 38. While not outright awful, these shows have achieved something far worse: boredom.

These recent episodes of SmackDown have exemplified this creative stasis. That doesn’t mean these shows are devoid of good matches or entertaining segments, but even those moments have their caveats, usually in the vein of “this is another rematch” or “this is reflective of the performers rather than anything the creative team did”.

This week’s edition of SmackDown — which emanated from Charlotte — kept this going. Aside from the four-match card, this show continued to progress the Charlotte Flair/Ronda Rousey and Roman Reigns/Brock Lesnar feuds.

While there were some good moments on SmackDown, there were also some things that went wrong on the show. Here are two of them.

Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan vs. Sasha Banks and Naomi ends in a non finish

When WWE announced that Raw stars Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan would travel to SmackDown to face Sasha Banks and Naomi (WWE offered no explanation for Ripley and Morgan being on SmackDown, but it is what it is), some fans assumed this babyface clash would end with some sort of schmoz and only asked for some good action before that happened.

That WWE has lowered people’s expectations to such a point is pretty sad. Plus, it didn’t make the finish — Natalya and Shayna Baszler grinning in to trigger the non-finish — any less disappointing. Besides it mirroring what WWE did with the Montez Ford/Riddle match and served as a lazy way to keep both babyface teams from losing, it led to another random team getting added to the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match, which feels even more thrown-together now.

Kofi Kingston distracts himself and loses to Ridge Holland

Toward the end of the Kofi Kingston/Ridge Holland match, the referee evened the odds for Kingston by ejecting Sheamus and (sigh) Butch from ringside. Kingston took advantage of this by…antagonizing the departing Sheamus and Butch by hurling a shillelagh at them, which set up Kofi getting distracted by a returning Butch and created an opening for Holland to slam Kingston and pin him.

WWE likely crafted this finish to give Holland a win while giving Kingston an out for losing, but this only made Kingston look foolish for creating his own distraction, and him doing this as a babyface only makes this finish look worse. He would’ve been better off losing clean.