WWE Super Show-Down 2018 Results: Reviewing Top Highlights and Low Points

WWE Super Show-Down hurt its surrounding events and suffered from being crammed between Hell in a Cell and Evolution, which never gave it a chance to be anything but superfluous.

The company tried to alleviate some pressure by splitting the difference, announcing several matches well in advance to drive up some hype for this card at the expense of Hell in a Cell while also booking this lineup on the weaker side to avoid having to do too much work setting it up.

Consisting of rematches of feuds that have gone on since SummerSlam or longer, pointless tag team contests with nothing on the line similar to an episode of Raw or SmackDown, one major fight capitalizing on nostalgia and only three titles on the line, this event wasn't looking good heading into it.

However, history has shown that some of the most painfully dreadful cards can sometimes surprise us by being great. So now that Saturday's event is over and done with, how did it turn out?

If the time difference was too much for you to handle and you've waited to check out this pay-per-view, did you miss out on something great, or were you lucky enough to avoid sitting through a bunch of horrible segments?

Presented in order of appearance, here are the highlights and low points of WWE Super Show-Down.

For those more curious about the outcomes than what transpired, here are the results:

• The New Day defeated The Bar by pinfall to retain the SmackDown Tag Team Championships.
• Charlotte Flair defeated Becky Lynch by disqualification.
• John Cena and Bobby Lashley defeated Kevin Owens and Elias by pinfall.
• The IIconics defeated Asuka and Naomi by pinfall.
• AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe by submission to retain the WWE Championship.
• Ronda Rousey and The Bella Twins defeated The Riott Squad by submission.
• Buddy Murphy defeated Cedric Alexander by pinfall to win the Cruiserweight Championship.
• The Shield defeated Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre by pinfall.
• Daniel Bryan defeated The Miz by pinfall.
• Triple H defeated The Undertaker by pinfall.

Now, let's dive deeper into which elements stood out as the biggest pros and cons of Saturday's pay-per-view.

If viewed within a bubble, the contest for the SmackDown Women's Championship was perfectly fine. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair are two of the best wrestlers the WWE's women's division has to offer.

But the bothersome element to an event like this is that Super Show-Down had the air of a house show, and the way the finish to this match was booked was a perfect illustration of that.

Lynch retained via disqualification after hitting Flair with the belt, which is a rational thing to do if you're a cowardly heel who can only keep the title by cheating.

However, Lynch is not one of those heels. She won the title fair and square at Hell in a Cell, which proves that she has it in her to continue with the hot streak she had been on leading up to SummerSlam.

The reason why Lynch did this was to drag things out so these two can have another match, which means Saturday's contest was pointless in the grand scheme of things.

It's already been announced that Flair will get a rematch on Tuesday's edition of SmackDown.

If you skipped this bout, you didn't miss a thing. If you can immediately look back on a segment and think that it was a waste of time, that's incredibly disheartening.

It's been a few months since John Cena has been in action, so one of the things to look forward to for this show was his return, especially since he was teasing the debut of a new finisher.

Cena has always been criticized for relying on just a few maneuvers—affectionately referred to as the five moves of doom—so it was interesting to hear a sixth was being added to the repertoire.

Then, it happened, and it was...a chop? A limp wrist to the face? A punch? What was that?

Whatever this Lightning Fist was, it was stupid and underwhelming—particularly since it was, in a sense, supposed to be the most exciting part of the segment.

It isn't as though the action beforehand was building to something else. This was as generic of a tag team match as they come, and it was leading toward Cena getting the hot tag to amp things up.

Instead, he did a handful of moves for a short amount of time, nailed a new underwhelming finisher and that was it.

You may make the argument that anyone who set their expectations too high was bound to be disappointed, but if WWE wishes the audience to take everything as the most exciting thing ever, that's not the fans' fault when things fail to impress.

By no means was the tag team match between The IIconics and the unusual pairing of Asuka and Naomi something to write home about. It wasn't anything that would have moved the meter on an episode of SmackDown.

However, the more important element of this was simply allowing Peyton Royce and Billie Kay to not only compete on the card but actually come out on top.

It's astonishing that they have been on the main roster since April 10 yet this was their first performance at any pay-per-view since.

Since joining SmackDown, they haven't accomplished much of anything, losing most of their matches and bouncing between feuds without much substance.

For some reason, WWE frequently has the urge to book people to lose in their hometowns or countries, which could have continued the trend of Royce and Kay's failures, so it was nice to see that temptation put aside to give The IIconics something positive for once.

AJ Styles and Samoa Joe have been feuding since before SummerSlam, so there was a risk that they would have exhausted everything they had to offer and would just be repeating themselves by the time Super Show-Down came around.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. This was probably their best match together.

The No Disqualification stipulation certainly helped, as it awarded them the opportunity to incorporate chairs and tables—as well as the frequently overlooked rule that reaching the ropes does not break submissions.

That was particularly important here, as both of them use submission finishers, and not having the easiest way to escape those holds put them in considerably more danger.

There was also solid storytelling, with Joe hearing his knee pop and Styles targeting that, which led to The Phenomenal One's victory.

While it's disappointing that Joe has yet to accomplish anything of true value on the main roster, and this could be taken as a sign that he may never win a world title in WWE, at least the loss came in a quality match against one of the best.

It's amazing that 205 Live doesn't have more viewers when the performers on that brand, as a whole, are the most consistently fantastic athletes WWE has to offer.

Even if they aren't the most bombastic characters with the biggest personalities on all the marketing material, it takes nothing away from their in-ring work, which is essentially a constant guarantee of quality.

Going into this match between Cedric Alexander and Buddy Murphy, it was obvious the action would be intense, energetic and some of the most fun of the night. And these two delivered on that promise.

An example of this was Alexander's Michinoku Driver off the top rope. Things like that are staples of the cruiserweight division rather than exceptions to the rule.

These two set out to steal the show and were able to put on one of the best matches of the night, which also created a major highlight through Murphy's title win in his hometown.

If you were sleeping on 205 Live and were impressed by what you saw here, you need to be tuning in on Wednesday nights to let WWE know that you appreciate what these guys and others do every week.

On paper, The Miz vs. Daniel Bryan is one of the best feuds going in WWE, and the two have good-enough chemistry together that they could have put on one of the better matches of the event.

However, it seems like there was a mandate to keep things short and simple and purposely sweep it under the rug, as just when they were starting to build some proper momentum, the match simply ended.

A roll-up out of nowhere scored Bryan the victory, but the crowd was so taken aback by the finish that nobody reacted with any uproarious cheering. Rather, there was a stunned silence before a bit of a sigh of disappointment that everything was over already.

In the long run, this may be a good thing. WWE clearly has had a problem of repeating matches until they have been beaten into the ground. But in terms of this particular event without the benefit of hindsight, this fell flat.

This match was not the equivalent of what these two were able to do in their primes, but it was still something the crowd was invested in and was better than could have been expected, so it's a win.

Thank goodness WWE had the foresight to make this a No Disqualification match. Without that flexibility, it likely would have been pretty rough to sit through.

This allowed more spots, which opened a window for rests to avoid a situation wherein someone was out of breath and too blown-up to do what was next.

Knocking out the referees added a bit more fun to this too because it's always a bit surprising when someone like The Undertaker just decks Mike Chioda out of nowhere.

It was also nice to see all four men embrace at the end in a sign of respect, as they are legends who have earned the right for the WWE Universe to hold them in such high regard.

Even better was the double-cross that followed it, as The Brothers of Destruction made sure to let it be known how twisted they can be.

If this were WWE's attempt to get people interested in a Brothers of Destruction vs. D-Generation X match for Crown Jewel, then that mission has been accomplished.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.