5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (3 July - Results & Review)

1. Main Event Delivers

It would've been real easy for this to play before audience apathy, but it's a real credit to the star power of Cody and how well he meshes with Jey that fans got hooked early. Rhodes vs. Uso to determine who challenges Sami Zayn on Raw was a good watch. There was just enough reason to believe that Jey could win given all of his history with Sami.

No, this guy doesn't particularly like that he was shoved back in the title picture after losing to Oba in the KOTR final, but this match vs. Rhodes was definitely one of the best things about SmackDown and Jey looked to have some of his old fire back. It's important to call individual matches and segments as they happen. Yes, reviews like this need to keep the broader picture in mind, but wrestling telly is supposed to be fun and it's easy to lose sight of that when hyper-analysing.

This main event was certainly fun.

It didn't pretend it was going to be some exhausting, PLE headlining masterpiece, and was better for it. Cody and Jey simply went out there with a mission statement: Successfully trick the live crowd into thinking that Uso could score an upset, then have Rhodes rebound to march onto Monday and a tantalising clash with Zayn.

One gets the feeling this pair could work excellent matches with their eyes shut. Chemistry counts, but so does telling a story mid-match rather than just burning through endless looping spots. On SmackDown, Cody and Jey favoured story over anything else. Good job, lads.

What did you think of this week's WWE SmackDown? For more like this, check out 10 Wrestling Jobbers So BIZARRE They Feel Made Up and 10 New Directions For WWE After Night Of Champions 2026!