6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (14 June - Results & Review)
LA Knight chooses Puerto Rico over Scotland; AJ Styles references AEW; Randy Orton returns.
Glasgow, Scotland was rowdy for this week's episode of SmackDown, and things will only get louder come Clash At The Castle. Your writer was in attendance for Friday's TV, so this might be a different kind of 'Ups & Downs' compared to usual. In short, the dude penning this piece hasn't watched the show back on telly, so all of the points here discuss how things worked in the arena.
Before WWE's cameras started rolling, Pretty Deadly stared at the lights for Cedric Alexander and Ashante Adonis in a lively tag bout. Post-show, Triple H's crew treated the locals to two more fun matches: Sami Zayn vs. Ludwig Kaiser (the Imperium man trolling Scotland taking a beating from Germany at the Euros was top tier) and Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus.
None of that made air though. On SmackDown proper, Randy Orton roared back into action by saving good pal Kevin Owens from a kicking at the hands of The Bloodline. That was part of a show-long thread also involving The Street Profits and Nick Aldis.
Elsewhere, DIY arrived on the main roster (Scotland might be their new favourite place), AJ Styles and Cody Rhodes had an excellent face-to-face, and the TV main event was as physical as you'd expect from guys like KO and Solo Sikoa.
Here's all the good and bad from a preview of what's to come on Saturday night at Clash.