5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (27 June - Results & Review)

3. A Nothing QOTR Preview

What a waste of time between Jade Cargill and Asuka. Naomi got involved too. Admittedly, that does keep her stuff purring with Jade, but there wasn’t much to see here at all. Nobody involved really had anything exciting to say, and Wade Barrett barely even asked any questions so it was puzzling that he was even inside the ring at all. Cole gently ribbing him about asking the hard-hitting stuff aged like milk.

WWE tried and failed to excite people for both tournament finals come Night Of Champions. Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton have an out because of the aforementioned power issues, but Asuka and Jade have no such excuses. They might as well have been talking to cameras rather than each other before Naomi marched out to spit some venom and tried to single-handedly save the segment.

Even she was powerless (ha) to do anything about it.

Chalk this one up to experience for Cargill. She'll need to do a lot better on the mic if she's going to be in major title feuds for the rest of the year, but maybe some patience is needed on that front. Jade has turned heads since debuting in AEW years ago, but she's still clearly green.

Asuka's usual posturing and wacky behaviour was never going to be enough to carry things on this occasion, and there's only so much WWE can do with Naomi vs. Cargill after Jade hammered the heel during WrestleMania season. It'll be a big challenge to heat that situation back up again.

It can be done, but not with tepid skits like this one.