Daniel Bryan Babyface Turn Threatens Heel Depth and More WWE SmackDown Fallout

The final episode of WWE SmackDown Live on USA Network brought with it a babyface turn by Daniel Bryan that threatened the company's heel depth, a major main event announcement for next week's debut on Fox, and the continued misuse of two of the promotion's most misused performers.

Bryan's babyface turn may prove a setup, sparking a rivalry with Roman Reigns before all is said and done, but his momentary venture back to the land of babyfaces highlights the prominent issue WWE has with its lack of credible, believable and quality villains.

Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon's rivalry has gone on for far too long and absolutely must end with their newly announced ladder match on next week's show or risk diminishing every ounce of momentum The Prizefighter has built since opposing The Best in the World earlier this summer.

Then there are Asuka and Kairi Sane, whose lack of meaningful work is representative of WWE's unwillingness to push anyone outside of the original Four Horsewomen of NXT.

Dive deeper into each of those topics with this week's SmackDown fallout. 

Earlier this year, Daniel Bryan was as hot a heel as there was in WWE.

As The Planet's Champion, he was routinely cutting some of the best promos of his career and had completely changed his in-ring style to reflect his savagery and relentlessness. It was because he was such a strong heel that Kofi Kingston's magical push to the WWE Championship worked as well as it did.

What appears to be a babyface turn and subsequent rivalry with former tag team partner Erick Rowan and the returning Luke Harper has not only erased the superb work put in by the elite performer but also left WWE with a depth problem on the heel side of things.

Particularly over on SmackDown Live, where the most consistent heel is Shane McMahon.

As a babyface, Bryan is arguably behind Roman Reigns, Kofi Kingston and Kevin Owens in the pecking order. As a heel, he was top one or two, a performer capable of generating heat to such an extent that he could easily re-emerge in the WWE title picture at any time.

Add to it the fact that Bryan as a babyface feels like a retread, with no real rhyme or reason for his sudden return to fan favoritism besides a fractured relationship with Rowan, and you have an even bigger case for him remaining a villain.

At some point, WWE must realize that its lack of quality heels only further diminishes how over its babyfaces can possibly be. A hero is only as effective as his villain, and without strong bad guys for stars like Reigns and Kingston to play off of, the storytelling process lacks the fire and intrigue that will drive fans to the product.

There is still a chance that the entire ordeal with Reigns, Bryan, Rowan and Harper is a setup by the former WWE champion to lure The Big Dog into a false sense of security before turning on him in grand fashion. If that is the case, the depth problem remains an issue but is less prominent and urgent than it would be otherwise.

The rivalry between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon will culminate in a ladder match on next week's SmackDown premiere on Fox. If Owens wins, McMahon is gone from WWE. If McMahon wins, Owens drops his lawsuit and remains fired.

It is a high-profile match that should serve as the main event for the blue brand's debut episode on broadcast television. It also absolutely must be the final encounter and last chapter of their rivalry.

In reality, Owens defeating McMahon at SummerSlam with a stunner in his home country should have concluded their issues. It was a magical moment for Owens, who was the hottest babyface in the company. Instead, as WWE tends to do, the program was dragged out for another month and now limps to the finish line.

Is the match and marquee bout deserving of the spotlight Fox will give it? Absolutely, but the program lacks the heat it had even a month ago, and worse yet, Owens' popularity has taken a significant dip because of the overwritten twists and the turns the storyline has incorporated since then.

For KO's sake, the feud absolutely must wrap up next Friday night with the dismissal of McMahon from television so that the brand and one of its biggest stars can move on to something fresher and more rewarding than the drawn-out program that has ultimately threatened his popularity.

Asuka and Kairi Sane are far too talented to be as blatantly wasted as they have been since teaming up as The Kabuki Warriors, something that became readily apparent Tuesday night as they battled Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville in tag team action.

Fire and Desire have been featured regularly as challengers to the women's tag team titles, and justifiably so. They, themselves, are talented performers who should enjoy the spotlight. Asuka and Sane, though, are elite performers between the ropes. They proved as much in NXT, where they were champions and centerpieces of the women's division.

Like so many, their main roster call-up has been marred by uneven booking and a reluctance to push them ahead of Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair, Bayley and Becky Lynch. Given how much television that foursome has enjoyed in recent months, would it have been such a bad thing to keep them off this week's show and let Asuka and Sane develop their characters more?

Ditto for a team like The IIconics or performers like Dana Brooke and Naomi, who have not had the benefit of the television time the original Four Horsewomen of NXT have.

If WWE stopped overexposing the talent it has and gave Superstars like the Kabuki Warriors television time to build their characters beyond some half-baked name, Asuka and Sane would be valuable assets to the division in the same way a Lynch or Banks is.

As it stands now, two of the most gifted in-ring performers remain stifled by a lack of creative attention and television time, thus robbing the division of two more stars to carry the weight of the women's revolution.