5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (14 Aug - Results & Review)

1. Brawl Beats Match To Close

Cody Rhodes was set to face Sami Zayn in the main event, but Randy Orton attacked Cody before they could get going. Both ended up brawling all over the building, then security pulled a steel chair away from Rhodes before he could get ultimate revenge on Orton. It also looked like Cody was going for something else on the announce desk, but we didn’t get to see that because they were out of time; WWE makes a habit of that these days, which is either deliberate or sloppy.

However, that didn’t take away from the brawling, which was heated and stiff.

There's a Sunday Night’s Main Event match incoming for 6 September, it seems, but there’s still the Sami title shot thing hanging over everything too. It's nice to have multi-layered scenarios like this, especially when they're main event level but don't actually involve the WWE Title (at least not yet). Zayn will find a way to blame Aldis for everything that happened here, because the frustration has been building and building for him since CM Punk defeated him for the title after a short 9-day reign.

Meanwhile, Orton and Cody are heading for some sort of 'No DQ' grudge match to settle their differences and do things right after the horror show that was WrestleMania 42's build. As always, fired up and intense Rhodes is a vast improvement over smiling, 'I sweat nothing' babyface Cody. His ability to show heelish fire as a baby is practically unmatched in 2026.

Here's to the crazy ones. More of this brawling from them, please.

What did you think of this week's WWE SmackDown? For more wrestling, check out 12 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: The Fall Of Renegade and 12 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Saving Paul Orndorff!