The biggest winners and losers of last night's SmackDown (September 3)

Last night's SmackDown was a decent show despite some questionable booking decisions in the King of the Ring tournament. WWE's programming has gotten better after the slump it had during the spring and early summer. SmackDown continued the positive, if not completely excellent, trend. With the NFL season about to start and All Elite Wrestling set to premiere on TNT, WWE picked the right time to improve its content.

Most of the major storylines advanced and the King of the Ring tournament delivered some surprising results. Who got the most and least out of this show?

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Winner: Bayley

Say what you will, but the heel turn is working. Explaining her actions, she told everyone that her friendship with Sasha Banks was behind all of this, even rationalizing her villainous side by saying it was about loyalty to her best friend - a lesson which the kids who have watched and loved her should learn.

She also called Charlotte Flair the "most selfish person in WWE," a label which the Queen proudly accepted, only to see her take a beating from Banks and Bayley.

One suspects that it won't be long before Flair has to reform her alliance with her old best friend, Becky Lynch, in order to take on this new threat.

There's a very NXT-like feel to this story, where the Four Horsewomen constantly shifted alliances. We can't expect that brilliance to be repeated on the main roster, but it would be a huge step up for a division that has been on the downswing this year.

It was precisely at this time last year that WWE's women's division caught fire. Can this angle bring the flames back? Or will it sputter out? That's the question that WWE will have to answer as the year begins to wind down.

Loser: Ali

Ali being defeated by Elias is a huge question mark. Ali hasn't done anything truly notable in a while, but this was still a massive loss of momentum, to say the least. Ali was in line for a huge push earlier this year before fate and KofiMania intervened. He still looked ready for a decent push once things got settled down. He even beat the hot Buddy Murphy in the first round.

But the push still hasn't happened.

Elias, meanwhile, has been toiling away doing random segments forever, so his win here was questionable. Ali could have used the King of the Ring a lot more at this point.

Truth be told, much of the booking of the King of the Ring tournament has been questionable. Much of it has been a damning indictment of the way WWE books its performers and an explanation as to why none of them ever become larger than life stars as in the past.

Losers: Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross

Speaking of WWE's maddening booking patterns, we saw the return of the "champions lose cleanly in a non-title match" trope last night, as Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross fell to Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.

This will in all likelihood set up a title match between the two teams at Clash of Champions, a match which the champions will probably win.

It's the kind of lazy, formulaic booking which is at the root of why so many people have tuned out of WWE in recent years.

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Winner: Chad Gable

This was another questionable booking decision, to say the least, but Chad Gable got more from this victory than Andrade suffered from his loss. Gable put on a great show, bringing out some grit and determination that most fans probably haven't seen in him before. Andrade's talent in the ring certainly helped in that.

Now we need to see whether WWE capitalizes on the reaction he got last night or if they simply job him out in the next round, which is a strong possibility.

Winner: Rowan

If WWE's goal was to build Rowan up as a threat to Roman Reigns for their match at Clash of Champions, they succeeded.

Daniel Bryan was adamant that he had nothing to do with the attack on Roman Reigns, and demanded an apology from the latter for falsely accusing him of being involved.

Afterward, Rowan came out and blindsided Roman Reigns, before grabbing a microphone and blasting Bryan for his betrayal, before laying a beating on him.

If this is truly the end of Rowan and Bryan's alliance, it's hard to believe it will lead to anything huge for the former, but I imagine that this isn't the end. Do you really believe that this angle is going to end with Rowan being the mastermind? It's hard to think that this is going to lead to anything other than Reigns vs. Bryan at some point down the line.

In fact, with this being the time of year where WrestleMania plans start getting discussed, one imagines a strong possibility of the two meeting in Tampa Bay.

For all the goodwill toward Kofi Kingston, it's hard to imagine him keeping his title that long. As of now, Reigns vs. Bryan is obviously the biggest match that can be done on SmackDown's side of the equation.