4 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (July 16)
Cesaro beats Rusev while another main event doesn't have a clean finish.
This week's edition of Smackdown was the last major show to take place before Sunday's Battleground event. There was some storyline progression, but as is usually the case on Smackdown there really wasn't anything that significant that took place.
The lack of star power was pretty evident because there was no Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Randy Orton and Kevin Owens was only shown for a brief instance backstage. When fans know that the biggest names aren't going to be on the show they aren't going to tune in. As a result, Smackdown's audience was one of the lowest it has ever been this week.
Fans were treated to a hard hitting contest between Cesaro and Rusev, both of whom aren't even on the Battleground card even though they should be. Perhaps they will have another match at the show since there's a gap there now that Ryback is injured and his match is off the card.
Here are the results from this week's show.
- Kofi Kingston & Big E (w/Xavier Woods) defeated Lucha Dragons (Sin Cara & Kalisto)
- King Barrett defeated Jack Swagger
- Cesaro defeated Rusev (w/Summer Rae)
- Neville defeated Stardust
- Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose defeated Sheamus and Big Show by DQ
Here are the four ups and four downs from this week's Smackdown.