The biggest winners and losers of last night's SmackDown (May 22)

This week's SmackDown was a relatively big occasion, with Charlotte Flair taking on Bayley, and the ongoing Intercontinental Championship tournament which saw a massive surprise entrant.

Elsewhere, Mr. Money in the Bank, Otis, continued to be embroiled in the fallout between Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, perhaps to his own detriment. With Backlash slowly building up, who got the most and least out of last night's show?

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Winner: AJ Styles

Out of the blue, we got word that AJ Styles had, in fact, returned to "the house AJ Styles built" -- SmackDown. Always his home, it was fitting to see him come back after a year away. Who he was traded for remains to be seen, though it will be a selling point on next week's RAW.

However, the sudden manner in which it happened suggests that WWE is weakening its brand extension again, as it was doing this time last year with the much-maligned wild card rule. So far, things haven't been that chaotic this year, but it is a sign of the lengths WWE will go to in tough times.

Anyway, we saw a WrestleMania 34 rematch between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura on this show. Thankfully, this one wasn't plagued with low blows as their entire 2018 rivalry was. What we got instead was a straight-up wrestling match that exceeded most of their contests that year and which Styles won.

He has to be considered one of the favorites already and is probably on a collision course with Daniel Bryan at Backlash. True, we've seen that match often, but if WWE leaves them to their own devices, there should be nothing stopping it from being the best match at Backlash. We'll just have to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Winner: Bayley

The notable development in this match wasn't that Bayley actually won it by hook or by crook (by the way, is Charlotte supposed to be a heel or a babyface? Can someone answer?). Rather, the development was that she told Sasha Banks to stay backstage. The manner in which she won, however, suggests that she needs her friend.

This could finally be some much-needed development in the ongoing storyline with Bayley and Sasha Banks. The turn that many expected for WrestleMania didn't happen. Maybe that was due to the pandemic, maybe not. However, the wait has left the division languishing.

If we build toward that turn, the division will get a new breath of life. Hopefully, some crowds can start to return for SummerSlam season, however small they may be, to increase the excitement of it.

Is WWE waiting for what is essentially the five-year anniversary of the iconic showdown between Bayley and Sasha in August of 2015? It may be a fitting milestone, the two entering the clash with the roles reversed.

Loser: Otis

Yes, there's no need to rush Otis to the main event. He has an entire year to cash in the briefcase. But, there was just nothing about this that felt like it was a prelude to the main event buildup. Instead, the stars of the action were Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, while Otis was paired with the perennial lower mid-carder in Dolph Ziggler as essentially an afterthought, whether WWE intended it or not.

This doesn't send the right messages about Otis ongoing campaign with the briefcase. Already, he's starting to feel like Carmella felt a few years ago, hanging around the periphery so that by the time she cashed in, she was far from ready to be champion, and the resulting title reign was bad for the division, to put it lightly.

WWE shouldn't make the same mistake with Otis. Already a questionable winner to begin with, he should nevertheless start getting put in serious feuds, perhaps even with Bray Wyatt. If WWE wanted to make him a big deal, they need to treat him as such.

It's still very early, but this is something the company should keep in mind.