The biggest winners and losers of last night's SmackDown (March 5)

Fastlane is the most useless pay per view on the WWE calendar, and it showed last night, as WWE put out another poor episode. The company's track record with these go-home shows just hasn't been good lately. With one exception, last night's show fell flat, including in the build to the WWE Championship match.

Nevertheless, were there any people who got a lot out of last night's show?

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Loser: Daniel Bryan

Oh look, another unnecessary opening promo to create a match that could have been booked beforehand. Oh look, another way to introduce someone we already knew was there - Eric Rowan. Oh look, another way to fill time that didn't ultimately lead to anything later in the night, anyway.

WWE's booking formula is beyond tired and unfortunately, it's bitten Daniel Bryan's reign this month. An interesting title reign has been rendered moot by the way they've been booking him lately.

Things should get better after Fastlane, but the corresponding damage will have already been done. As for Kevin Owens, this has been a complete waste of a return. Expect him to fall back into 50/50 land in the mid-card as soon as next Monday.

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Winners: The Usos

Hey, look, yet another champion gets pinned before a title match at Fastlane. Could WWE possibly come up with something more original even if they tried? The Usos were in no danger of losing on Sunday, but there definitely could have been a better way to build the match than this.

If WWE is wondering why it's losing its audience and possibly its Superstars as well, they need look no further than in the build to Fastlane, which has managed to make almost everyone on the roster look bad. "Roadblock" would be a far more apt description of this pay per view.

"Winner:" Samoa Joe

I put the word "winner" in quotations because even though this was a tremendous match and Samoa Joe walked away with the title, we've seen that title's curse for a long time now. Hopefully, Samoa Joe can be the one to bring the United States Championship back from the brink. He certainly has the tools to do so - but will the company let him, given how visibly little they care about the title?

That's a question that remains to be answered. We should find out soon enough. It would be a travesty if Joe is the latest to win the US title and then disappear.

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Loser: The SmackDown women's division

Let's just remove any doubts now - absolutely nobody cares about Mandy Rose. The sheer crickets in this match proved it. WWE is trying to put her over as a believable challenger to Asuka but no one is buying it. Does this sound familiar to what they tried with Carmella a year ago? It certainly does to me.

Asuka's beatdown of Rose after the match should send alarm bells further, because it was a rushed, filler way to use the champion and might suggest that she could lose the title on Sunday, which would be another disaster for the division.

Meanwhile, Naomi is directionless, Sonya Deville continues to look like the one that should get pushed but isn't getting a chance, and Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch, who should be on Raw right now, had a tired, rushed, repetitive segment of their own after it was unneeded because of Monday's dynamite.

The women's division has unfortunately regressed since the Royal Rumble, and last night proved it.