4 subtle things you might have missed on SmackDown Live (8 May 2018)

After a very disappointing Backlash and a lackluster Raw the following day, this past week's episode of SmackDown Live was a breath of fresh air. The show was well paced, almost all the matches had some impact on the ongoing storylines and there were many good promos.

We saw three Money in the Bank qualifying matches, a shocking but well-timed win for Rusev against Daniel Bryan and great in-ring action.

In addition to all this, here is a list of five subtle things you possibly missed from the show.

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#4 The Miz being a true heel

Watch me, kid

The opening match between Jeff Hardy and The Miz for a spot in the Men's MITB match was one hell of an opening match. The Miz is truly proving that he is able to hang with some of the best in-ring technicians in the business and yet hold his own.

In addition to this, there was a moment when the Hollywood A-Lister proved why he is one of the best heels in the business today.

While fighting outside the ring, The Miz was getting ready to hit Hardy with a forearm while he was lodged on the barricade, and while doing that, Miz decided to be the perfect heel and hazed a kid sitting in the crowd.

Miz pointed to the kid, and seemingly asked him to watch closely as he hit the fan favorite Hardy.

Ok maybe he was borrowing a trick from the Kevin Owens playbook by bullying a kid, but it was still a brilliant moment of heelish work.

#3 Paige being partial

Why not bar Billie Kay as well?

While Paige seems like she is really coming into her own in the General Manager's role, this week, she was guilty of being slightly partial.

Before heading out to the ring, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were seemingly discussing tactics when Paige confronted them and let them know that Deville was barred from ringside.

While this seemed like something a babyface GM usually does, she did let Billie Kay stay ringside for the match between Peyton Royce and Charlotte, and The New Day and Sheamus were ringside for the match between Cesaro and Xavier Woods! Why the discrimination, Ms.GM?

#2 No split-screen advertisements

Hopefully, we've seen the last of these

One of the most annoying things about WWE programming since the last couple of months or so, has been the picture-in-picture adverts right in the middle of actual matches on SmackDown Live.

They weren't just images flashing for a few seconds, but multiple minutes of advertisements complete with audio and video playing on half the screen, while Superstars continued their matches in the ring.

These adverts really took the seriousness out of the matches, because fans already knew that nothing significant would happen in the match and neither would the match end, while an advert was playing side-by-side. But the good news is, WWE decided to skip the adverts for this week's episode. Hopefully, we won't be seeing them in future episodes either.

#1 Jeff Hardy is more than just a former Raw Tag Team Champion

Raw Tag Team Champion. That's it?

You might have noticed that WWE puts out a little window of facts and accomplishments of a Superstar while they make their entrance. While there are some nice tidbits on there occasionally, this week, Jeff Hardy's accomplishment list seemed slightly off.

The stats mention that Jeff Hardy is a former Raw Tag Team Champion and while this is fine, wouldn't it have been more appropriate to mention the fact that he is a 6-time World tag team Champion and 1 time WCW Tag Team Champion, bringing his total tally up to 8 Tag Team Championships?

Apparently, that wasn't really important, but the window does mention that Hardy is a 3-time Hardcore Champion. The same Hardcore Championship that Crash Holly held 22 times due to its 24/7 rule.