5 Biggest Winners & Losers From WWE SmackDown Live (Aug 2)

3. Winners: The Intercontinental Title Division

The Intercontinental Championship took a massive hit last week. Shortly after Randy Orton had completely disregarded the belt on the microphone, he and champion The Miz took to the ring, and Orton buried the champ in just a few minutes. It was a damning indictment of the belt’s unimportance, and a reminder that while the New Era has changed WWE in a number of positive ways, the company still weren’t above demolishing their mid-card champions.

Things took a step in the right direction this week. With Miz and his wife Maryse on commentary, Baron Corbin, Apollo Crews, and Kalisto engaged a Triple Threat to determine the belt’s next number one contender. Crews walked-out the victor of a fun (but brief) match-up. The three wrestlers brawled with Miz afterwards, and while Crews won the match, it was Baron Corbin standing tall as the segment came to an end.

Matches like this make the belt feel like something worth fighting for, which will go a long way to rebuilding its dented reputation. The match didn’t just set-up the Crews vs. Miz SummerSlam match, but Corbin laying-out Miz with the End of Days establishes him as a future contender, and the Lone Wolf also renewed his heat with Kalisto by attacking the former Lucha Dragon to kick-off the post-match fracas.

There’s a long way to go yet, but WWE pulled various threads from this match. Let’s see if they can tie them all together.