We’re back for another investment rate for SmackDown Live.
Things are slowly but surely getting good again in the WWE. Let’s see how the blue brand improved in this week’s edition.
The Good
The first thing to note is that Shane McMahon announced that he wouldn’t be appearing on tonight’s SmackDown. Hurrah! As much as I like McMahon, he does get a bit boring after a while. It would also mean that we would get some proper wrestling too.
The show kicked off with Kevin Owens against Drew McIntyre. You know what, I would actually love to see these two have a storyline together. One that didn’t involve Shane-O-Mac. It turned out to be a solid match-up between the two, which saw McIntyre punish Owens. However, Owens didn’t let McIntyre beat him, as he was able to finish the match with a superkick.
For me, it was nice to see wrestling kick off the show, a long-winded promo segment. The pair are both amazing, talented wrestlers so I’m not surprised they were able to put together a good match.
After Charlotte started calling herself the ‘Queen of all Eras’ recently, it left fans confused as to why this was happening. In this episode of SmackDown, it all came together like an episode of Poirot. Hall of Famer, Jerry Lawler, hosted King’s Court, with special guest Trish Stratus. The segment was interrupted by Charlotte, who challenged the Hall of Famer to a match at SummerSlam. In ‘shocking’ news, Trish accepted the Queen’s throwing down of the gauntlet.
Could we be seeing an amazing match up between one seven-time and one nine-time women’s champion? If done right, this could be a good match up. I hope that this isn’t a wasted opportunity to make Charlotte go over a Hall of Famer. The segment was predictable, but it did the job nevertheless.
Finn Balor faced off against The Showoff, Dolph Ziggler. However, before their match up, it was the latest instalment of “Firefly Fun House,” which saw the Rambling Rabbit praise Balor for his bravery. However, also warned him that he made a big mistake…
The match between two was predominantly a storyline match. It was about building momentum between Balor and Bray Wyatt for their match at SummerSlam. Wyatt made a brief appearance in the match, which allowed for a distraction for Ziggler to get the victory over Balor.
The main event saw WWE Champion, Kofi Kingston (with Big E and Xavier Woods) face AJ Styles (United States Champion, with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. Before the match took place, Randy Orton discussed how he couldn’t see Kington as champion in 2009, and even now. The storyline between the two of them is magic, and it’s what fans have been hoping to see, ever since he won the championship.
I enjoyed the match between Kingston and Styles, but it wasn’t anything too interesting. Big E and Woods brawled with Anderson and Gallows outside the ring, while Kingston was able to deliver a Trouble in Paradise to win the match.
I’m really enjoying the storyline with Orton and Kingston, and I can’t wait to see what happens between them at SummerSlam. I’m just hoping that they are able to put The New Day and The O.C. to good use and find them, good opponents.
The Bad
Following, Owens v McIntyre, it was SmackDown Women’s Champion, Bayley and Ember Moon against Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss. For me, I didn’t see much of a point for this match, as Cross and Bliss have nothing to do with the storyline for the championship so why have them in a match? I know why they did it because it put the champion and the challenger in the same tag team. As regular readers may be aware, I have advocated an Ember Moon title challenge for quite some time now.
For some strange reason, Cross and Bliss won the match, with Bliss getting the win over Moon. It doesn’t give Moon any momentum going into SummerSlam – at all. To make matters worse, Bayley delivered a Bayley-to-Belly on Moon. What did she do in a past life?
Let’s pretend that Smackville didn’t happen. Okay? In a rematch from Smackville, Shinsuke Nakamura faced off against Ali. The match wasn’t garbage, but is this leading to a championship match? Let’s hope the match actually makes it onto the main card, and not the pre-show this time. That being said, I was happy with Ali winning the match, I’m just unsure about the direction at the moment.
Okay, so they started the show with a wrestling match instead of a promo. However, at the end of the show, there was a segment with Kayla Braxton getting ready to interview Roman Reigns about who he wanted to face at SummerSlam. But before he was able to tell Braxton, the stage fell on him.
For me, this wasn’t the best-scripted scene in the world, and it was all weird to watch. Reigns walked away after the incident, and we didn’t get to find out who the opponent was he wanted to face. Very strange. It was intended to create suspense and intrigue but accomplished neither. Maybe we just have to wait until next week for the pay-off.
The Verdict
The question was, was I invested in the show? Yes, I was. I’m a huge fan of the main event storyline seeing Kofi Kingston face off against Randy Orton. This is a storyline which we have waited for ten years for now.
Could the Bayley and Ember Moon storyline be better? It certainly could be. The Charlotte and Trish Stratus match should be good if it’s booked right. I’m hoping that these two talented women are able to put together the dream match we’ve been wanting to see for a while.
For me, the mid-card and tag team division is still missing and needs a lot of work on. That for me would get me invested a lot more. At the moment, there is a lot of strengths but there are quite a few setbacks which are impacting my overall enjoyment of the blue brand.

That’s it for this week, and I will see you next week, where we will reflect on the blue brand once more.
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You can find me on Twitter @jackdinsley. Thanks for reading.