5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (July 23)

2. Road Wild

This, according to Cole, was the first time in brand history that SmackDown had been beamed from multiple locations. That sounds about right, to be honest, but the whole Rolling Loud deal was a miss. Despite the interesting look on camera, nothing else about the experiment clicked.

"Fans", if the folks in attendance waiting for live music could even be called that, didn't give a hoot about wrestling at all. They were flat for Dawkins vs. Gable and (more regrettably) for Carmella vs. Belair. Plus, resident fanboy Wale looked like a tool for trying to get the crowd onside.

They were pretty much silent.

WWE ended up piping in some obviously-fake noise, which shouldn't be necessary now that they're packing out buildings again. This might've been cool towards the end of the ThunderDome era just to show some bodies, but it didn't work here.