5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (July 14)

It was only fitting that the last taped SmackDown ended with a tag-team match...

WWE.com

On this coming Monday's edition of Raw (the last before the impending WWE Draft), Dean Ambrose will defend the WWE Title against Seth Rollins. It's clear that the company want to pop a rating here, because things have been on a downward trend lately in that respect, but they are giving away a pay-per-view quality match on free television.

Arguing about that sort of thing in the modern era seems foolish though, and SmackDown did a wonderful job in building anticipation for the big title bout coming up. In the midst of all that, the feud between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn was furthered.

This was the last taped SmackDown, and the final to take place on Thursday evenings. From next week, the show goes live on Tuesday nights, hopefully refreshing the formula completely. SmackDown hasn't been a bad show in quite some time, but it does often feel like a Raw retread.

A main event tag match, another shot for the women and a whole load of other action was featured this week. Let's look at the main 'ups' and 'downs' from the last SmackDown of the taped era...

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.