5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (June 30)
The Miz matched up well verbally with the WWE Champion on SmackDown...
SmackDown is in auto pilot mode, there's no getting away from that right now. The WWE Draft is imminent, meaning the creative team are clicking their heels, writing television that features one-off scenarios which won't have any bearing once that particular show is finished.
That was the case on this week's blue brand, but it doesn't mean the show was a bad one. There wasn't too much hype towards Battleground, but there were some solid matches and one shining promo segment to help motor things along. In terms of general entertainment, few who watched SmackDown can have any complaints.
As for the main 'ups' and 'downs'? Well, there were many, but the positives outweighed the negatives. Rusev is set to collide with Titus O'Neil on the coming Monday Night Raw episode, but once that's done the Bulgarian could have a hot new challenger to work well with come the next pay-per-view.
The set up for that was achieved on SmackDown, as was the idea of giving WWE Champion Dean Ambrose a suitable opponent and lengthy TV match.
Let's look at the main positives and negatives from this week's SmackDown...