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

"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.