4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (12 July - Results & Review)
LA Knight's future is set; SummerSlam's main event is confirmed; SmackDown sags in-ring.
Randy Orton will challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE Title soon enough.
WWE continued building to that in the background on SmackDown, but the immediate story concerns Bloodline 2.0 boss Solo Sikoa trying to do what Roman Reigns couldn't back at WrestleMania 40: Beat Cody once and for all. Newcomer Jacob Fatu is nipping Solo's heels in the group too, which isn't exactly a bad thing.
Fatu looked like a wrecking machine as Friday's show went off the air. It's obvious to anyone with a working pair of eyes that Jacob will be a major player in the company if this keeps up. The man has presence, but his next step will be showing he belongs in main event matches on big time PLEs. That's running before one can walk for now, to be fair.
SmackDown wasn't all sunshine and happiness though. Too many of the matches sagged (including two baffling rematches), and there was a pre-taped promo that was more in line with the kind of fluff you'd expect to see on AEW Rampage. Triple H must've borrowed the same napkins Tony Khan uses to book those shows!
So, multiple pay-per-view clashes set and a hot closing angle with the trade off that some of the matches sucked. That isn't the worst deal. Here's all the good and bad!