7 Ups & 2 Downs From WWE SmackDown (31 May - Results & Review)
AJ Styles becomes Mark Henry; LA Knight goes for gold; SmackDown storytelling smokes competition.
SmackDown's side for Clash At The Castle started really coming together on this week's show. Piper Niven will challenge Bayley but still acts as muscle for Chelsea Green, and AJ Styles suckered Cody Rhodes into another WWE Title bout on the Scottish PLE. That was risky, especially when Cody looked foolish for believing AJ before, but Friday's segment was hot.
It must be summer, or something.
This wasn't the kind of show for fans who want blistering and/or lengthy pure wrestling matches. No, it was more of a story-heavy broadcast - the kind that busily sets about the task of lining up those in-ring scorchers for later on. Yours truly can get behind that, and it's hardly like most of the matches tanked. They were fine, but hardly the priority.
One of the emerging undercard stories is painfully uninteresting though, and a baffling decision from somebody who should really know better stood out as another 'Down'. Admittedly, negatives were few and far between. Triple H's WWE is cooking right now, and that's impressive considering the string of 'B' level international pay-per-views going on.
Here's all the good and bad from SmackDown's latest.