4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Aug 20)

1. That Visual Win

Nobody, mind you, is "tearing it up on the mic" quite like Roman and Cena. They followed up last week's face-to-face with a sequel on SmackDown, and it ended with a simple plot point that's still super-effective; Cena rolled up Reigns for the visual "1...2...3", and Roman looked p*ssed about it.

Rollups are overdone in WWE, and it might've been wise not to book a Shotzi win with one earlier if they were running this angle in the main, but Cena has been banging on about "all I need is three seconds" for weeks now, so it also made sense. Maybe Pat McAfee shouldn't have said that Roman kicked out at "two and a half" either actually.

Neither moment killed the impact this had, to be fair.

Reigns said he'd walk away from WWE if he couldn't hold onto his Universal Title at SummerSlam, and Cena promised to toddle off and make movies whilst Roman lived through his own weekly, belt-less hell on SmackDown. This was top class build towards the title showdown.

What did you think of this week's WWE SmackDown? For more wrestling, check out WWE SummerSlam 2021: 10 Things That Must Happen and WWE SummerSlam 2021: 10 Nightmares That Could Come True!