Angry Otis, Updated WrestleMania Card and More WWE SmackDown Fallout

For the first time in weeks, WWE held a productive television show despite the hand dealt to it by the coronavirus pandemic, advancing storylines and building the card for WrestleMania 36 with one of the better episodes of SmackDown in recent memory.

Heavy Machinery's Otis got angry and kicked ass, women's champion Bayley learned her fate for The Show of Shows and Daniel Bryan and Drew Gulak strengthened their alliance with a win over Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro.

Dive deeper into the Fox broadcast with these major takeaways and what they tell us about WWE programming as the Showcase of the Immortals draws nearer.

Angry Otis Steals This Week's Episode

Dolph Ziggler has perpetrated serious heartbreak for Otis over the past few months, repeatedly sticking his nose in the big man's budding relationship with Mandy Rose and seemingly stealing her away from him on Valentine's night.

Couple that with the physical toll Ziggler and Robert Roode's attack took on Otis at Elimination Chamber, and it was only a matter of time before the charismatic heavyweight snapped. He did just that Friday after Ziggler taunted him with Instagram photos of The Showoff and Golden Goddess' recent date.

No longer able to contain his emotions, Otis pummeled SmackDown tag team champions John Morrison and The Miz while seeking to bulldoze Ziggler. A great heel, the former world champion was able to narrowly escape the wrath of his rival, again taunting him from the stage.

Otis' outburst was necessary for the sake of the storyline. He has been presented as such a lost puppy for so long, a grade-school kid who found out his crush was more into the pee-wee football star than him, that we needed to see the beast awakened.

Morrison and Miz got a taste of what that looks like, as did the fans, who needed to know Otis would stop pouting and unleash hell. He did, it was damn fun to watch and proves that Ziggler may have bitten off more than he—or anyone else—can chew.

While nothing has been announced, one must assume WWE will pay off one of its best and most engaging storylines at WrestleMania. Exactly how it does so remains the question.

Will Otis and Ziggler square off in singles competition, or will Roode and Tucker be involved? And what of Rose, who has been conspicuous by her absence in recent weeks. As has tag team partner Sonya Deville.

There are still questions that need to be answered, but there is one thing we know for certain: What started as an innocent romantic story has evolved into one of the hottest programs in years, also managing to elevate Otis to new-found popularity and reinvigorate Ziggler just in time for the year's biggest event.

Women's Championship WrestleMania Match Leaves More Questions Than Answers

Where's Carmella?

What have Lacey Evans, Naomi and Dana Brooke done to earn another shot at the SmackDown Women's Championship?

Why can't we have Bayley vs. Sasha Banks?

How cool would it have been if Paige could have competed?

Tamina?!

The questions created by the announcement that Bayley will defend her women's title in a Six-Pack Challenge match at WrestleMania, against Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans, Naomi, Tamina and best friend Sasha Banks, shine a light on what has been an uneven, inconsistent women's division over the past six months.

Women win and then lose yet still remain top contenders. Undefined characters. Matches for matches' sake. All have plagued the division and will culminate in what is sure to be a messy match that accomplishes little except creating the first hints of a schism between Bayley and Banks.

That is something that could have been accomplished any number of other ways, including a straight singles match between them.

Instead, we get a jam-packed bout with one or two real contenders to dethrone Bayley.

The absence of Carmella, who won a No. 1 Contender's match by pinning Naomi as recently as February, and the inclusion of Tamina, who has done nothing to belong in a title bout, only makes the whole thing that much more curious.

Daniel Bryan Continues Lends Credibility to Drew Gulak

One of the best developments to come out of the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view has been the on-screen relationship between Daniel Bryan and Drew Gulak. While Bryan has committed to learning from the grizzled Philadelphian, Gulak has benefited from sharing the screen with a former world champion.

In fact, not only has his presence on SmackDown grown, but so too has his credibility.

By association, he has become a bigger star on WWE television than he has ever been and finds himself smack dab in the middle of a storyline involving Sami Zayn's Intercontinental Championship. And on next week's show, he will battle Shinsuke Nakamura for the chance to earn Bryan a shot at the gold.

It was evident by the lengths Bryan went to in order to put Gulak over during their match at Elimination Chamber that he has a great deal of respect and admiration for the former cruiserweight champion. That he has become an on-screen mentor of sorts has only made that more obvious.

As his future as a full-time competitor becomes more and more cloudy, it is nice to see Bryan giving back by elevating Gulak's star and positioning him to achieve the sort of great things he probably already should have by now.

WWE Finally Provides Productive No-Audience TV Show, Builds WrestleMania Card

Perhaps motivated by Wednesday's critically acclaimed episode of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite, which presented major storyline developments, fun in-ring content and the high-profile debuts of Matt Hardy and Brodie Lee, WWE presented a productive show Friday night on Fox.

With WrestleMania rapidly approaching, it began building the event's undercard. From the latest in the aforementioned rivalry between Otis and Dolph Ziggler to the women's championship match, as well as Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross doubling down on their challenge to The Kabuki Warriors for a Women's Tag Team Championship match, WWE took the steps necessary to provide a show that had meaning.

Even the debut of Rob Gronkowski, as silly as it was, set up Elias vs. King Corbin for WrestleMania.

There were angles, in-ring content and promos that furthered established programs. Even the airing of John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt from WrestleMania XXX in the middle of the broadcast was essential to telling the story of the Cena-Fiend match upcoming at The Showcase of the Immortals.

Apparently no longer content with just skating by, especially after the competition proved you can still have a strong wrestling show amid the coronavirus pandemic, SmackDown delivered at a time when it needed to, and the result was an enjoyable bit of TV.