6 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Jun 12)

Ups...

6. Head In The Clouds

Carmella had a relatively quiet night by her usual loudmouth standards, but was still totally effective in her role, first in a brief backstage segment, then as part of the night's main event.

We'll get to the latter part later. For now, let's focus on her words, which served as an effective snapshot of her deluded heel character and the feud with Asuka as a whole.

Taken literally, there was nothing notable about her words. She promised victory, put herself over, claimed 'The Empress' was afraid of her, and spat the "'Mella is money" catchphrase. Unlike the trite AJ Styles diatribe, though, Carmella's rant dripped with character. She does an excellent chop of presenting herself as a borderline cloud cuckoo lander who genuinely thinks she's above the fearsome Asuka. Claiming that the Japanese star would be scared is preposterous, and that's exactly how it should be.

With Carmella's ego now stratospheric, a 10-second head-kick knockout would be the most gratifying way to go at Money In The Bank. This won't happen, and we'll likely get another 10-minute scream and stall fest instead, but them's the breaks.