WWE Money in the Bank 2017 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match

The Usos (c) vs. The New Day

What we learned: We learned here that WWE doesn’t mind having two horrible finishes in a row.

Seriously, a countout finish in a title match at a pay-per-view? While this wasn’t as bad as the ending that came before it, this was still disappointing. As for the match itself, it had a decent pace to it but for four good wrestlers, this looked very sloppy. Kofi Kingston was the standout in this match, particularly that first fall to the floor. I really thought he was legitimately injured after being tossed out of the ring but he usually sells pretty well, which he continued to do throughout the match. Furthermore, that new “trust fall” dive, if that’s we’re going to continue to call it, looks great and he’s the perfect guy to do something like that.

The other three competitors in this match just looked a little off. The Usos usually have good chemistry and obviously work well together but they couldn’t find a rhythm on Sunday night. Big E looked like he was moving in slow motion a few different times and the spot where he was supposed to catch one of the Usos off the top rope looked bad. I’m not saying that’s an easy spot to pull off but that’s usually something these guys would be able to do and it was just one of a few different spots that didn’t look as good as they normally would. With that being said, there were some good near-falls in the match and it really was hard to figure out which way they were going to go with the outcome, which is never a bad thing … until they went with the outcome that they did.

What’s next: I understand that WWE wants this feud to continue and I’ve got no problem with that. These teams are going to put on better matches as it goes along, but again, come up with a different finish. Heel heat is one thing but going with a countout finish on a pay-per-view is ridiculous. The St. Louis crowd deserved better and so did all of us watching on the WWE Network. Battleground is the next SmackDown Live pay-per-view and we’ll likely see a rematch there.