Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show that gave us two new qualifying women for the interim title ladder match at SummerSlam, plus two new SummerSlam matches in general! The WINC staff has thoughts about ... well, some of that, at least. We don't have much to say about Chelsea Green winning her qualifier, but we do have thoughts on how Charlotte Flair won hers; similarly, while we didn't have any strong feelings about the four-way main event that saw Finn Balor win his way to a No. 1 contender's match at SummerSlam, we do have strong feelings about his opponent in that SummerSlam match,SamiZayn. And of course, we have lots to say about pretty much everything else that happened on the blue brand this week, from GUNTHER's contract signing with Nick Aldis to CM Punk's face-off with CodyRhodes.If you missed the show and need to catch up, please feel free to check out our "WWE SmackDown" 7/24/26 results page, which contains everything you need to know about everything that went down this week. If you want to know what the WINC crew thought about what went down or at least the parts that stood out most to us, for better or worse this is the column for you. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 7/24/26 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"
This week's show highlighted a glaring issue with WWE at the moment, with reigning champions all competing in the night for the opportunity to challenge for the world title. Now, that's not to say the world title shouldn't be the ultimate goal for anyone competing. It should be. But at the same time, Trick Williams and Damian Priest, United States and Tag Team Champion respectively, fought for the right to fight for the right to fight for the WWE Championship. Lainey Reid, Women's Tag Team Champion, was facing one of the champions she beat in Brie Bella in singles action. That did set up a match at SummerSlam with Nikki Bella's return, but that will be a trios tag team match pitting Fatal Influence against the Bellas and Paige.Tiffany Stratton will also be foregoing any defense of her United States title at the pay-per-view in order to challenge for the Interim WWE Women's Championship at SummerSlam. Four different championships ideally used to diversify the paths that talent can take in their quest for gold, and all have been suspended in favor of the WWE Championship, the Interim Women's Championship, or a trios match with no titles on the line.None of those titles have been defended since June and it doesn't even seem as though there is any intention to build credible challengers. Outside of CM Punk and Cody Rhodes mentioning they may want to challenge for the tag titles, no one except the War Raiders has even showed an inkling of wanting to challenge for them. Carmelo Hayes clearly wants the United States Championship, but even then there was nothing to that effect this week.The continual adding of matches without stakes to puff out cards is plain to see, and when it's being done in lieu of the shiny belts that viewers are being told they should care about, it feels like it's taking away value in one way, another, or both.Written by Max Everett
After months of teasing it, GUNTHER and Nick Aldis are finally facing off in a ring. Tonight it was made officially official with a contract signing. One thing I liked about this segment was Adam Pearce informing Aldis that as soon as he signed the contract, he would be a WWE superstar and no longer acting in his capacity as the GM of the blue brand.GUNTHER came out in relaxed mode, wearing jeans and a tee shirt. It's a look that we don't see often for "The Ring General". He seems to be taking Aldis lightly since he hasn't had a match in several years. He also repeated much of the same things he's already said. He essentially called Aldis a never was (despite the fact that he was the former NWA Heavyweight Champion and held several titles in TNA). He wants to add Aldis to the list of names he's beaten in their last matches. Aldis called GUNTHER out for his repetitive promo and saying nothing new. Aldis believes GUNTHER never wanted the match to actually happen.After Aldis signed the contract and his GM duties were lifted, he immediately got physical with GUNTHER and started whaling on him, finally releasing pent up anger he's had toward his upcoming opponent for months. GUNTHER kicked him in the yambags before powerbombing him through the table. While the contract signing did turn out like most of them do, it wasn't as annoying as usual. Aldis is champing at the bit to go one-on-one with GUNTHER and we got a little preview of what's to come at SummerSlam. The match should deliver.Written bySamantha Schipman
I probably shouldn't complain, because the women's division was actually featured in three matches tonight, compared to not at all on "WWE Raw" on Monday, but there are just quite a few things that don't sit right with me about the SummerSlam ladder match for the interim WWE Women's Championship. Outside of not loving the fact an interim champion is being crowned in the first place, I also really don't love some of the various competitors booked into the bout.The fact that Jade Cargill and Charlotte Flair are taking up two spots in the match, rather than having their own match at "The Biggest Party of the Summer" is baffling to me. I'm assuming that WWE wants their first one-on-one match to be for a title, and I guess that will be for the interim title, as I could see Flair winning this to set up another match against Ripley, but I just don't think that's necessary. I don't want to see Flair as interim champion when there could be so many other women who could be inserted into this ladder match to get the opportunity.Flair and Cargill's first bout doesn't need to be for a title. I think maybe we should see how they actually work together in a match before it's for any gold. Truly, it's a pretty big match as it is already, as many fans want to see them go head-to-head. Flair's name alone can sell a match at a big premium live event, and with two nights of SummerSlam, it would just make sense. God forbid we add another women's match to the card just for the sake of a good story, however.I also didn't love that both women qualified over Nia Jax in a DQ finish, due to interference by the other. I guess you can't exactly have one woman qualify clean while the other gets into the match by any other means, but poor Jax. She has every right to be angry, and I'm assuming she qualifies for the last spot next week after being screwed over not once, but twice.If Flair and Cargill were already set for their own one-on-one match, there would be two spots open for the title bout, one if you include Jax, and other spots open for the television qualifiers. There are so many women on "SmackDown," like Jordynne Grace, Giulia, and Blake Monroe, to name a few, who would have benefited from even just the qualifying matches. Cargill and Flair have a big enough feud to be its own thing on the SummerSlam card, and it just takes something away from what this ladder match could be.Written by DaisyRuth
I won't lie: at first, I was fully prepared to hate on the match between Lainey Reid and Brie Bella from this episode of "SmackDown." We've seen Brie and Paige take on Reid, Fallon Henley, and Jacy Jayne in a series of singles matches over the last several weeks, and Brie has been shown to win against Fatal Influence members before with a simple roll-up which doesn't look super great for her as someone that's considered to be a legend in the ring. The idea of Brie winning via roll-up has grown stale much like my interest in the storyline between Brie, Paige, and Fatal Influence.I must admit that the return of Nikki Bella from this edition of "SmackDown" definitely changed my mind about this portion of the show and did regain my interest in the angle quite a bit. Not only did it even the odds for Brie and Paige, but it also opens the door for WWE to do something interesting in having Nikki, Brie, and/or Paige to turn on one another at some point down the line to smoothly transition into a pretty straight forward storyline. It was what the storyline needed, and doing it before SummerSlam was perfect timing to add some more marquee names to a card that needs it given that the card for this year's event is a little bit all over the place.Written by Olivia Quinlan
CM Punk and Cody Rhodes continued the build towards their WWE Championship at SummerSlam with a promo of contradictions and intense "brother brother" energy.First thing on the agenda was a very petty grievance about Punk inadvertently hitting Rhodes with the championship belt strap, which Rhodes initiated by dropping a microphone and making a point of it being an accident. Somehow, Punk didn't trust the cookie-cutter white-meat babyface Rhodes not to kick him while he was bent over or had his back turned to him. Then after all that Rhodes admitted that he would be stupid to say it wasn't an accident, and then word vomited his way into eventually saying he loves Punk, but he doesn't like him.The reason for that was Punk laid out a blueprint with his 2011 "pipebomb" promo, while Rhodes actually followed it, all while the fans wished it was Punk doing the things he was doing. They were dancing around actually mentioning the AEW parallels between them, which just left the promo feeling half-empty, like a novella with a page torn out.There's no doubt that these two men can talk as though talking alone were a professional sport, but there is such a lack of material going into the why between their match that everything just feels off. Neither have fallen on the sword of making themselves the bad guy in this feud, instead opting to go the route of being both righteous to the point of nausea and talking about not wanting to let the championship get in the way of their friendship.Of all the people in the world, it really didn't seem as though a feud between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes would hinge on friendship. It's weak sauce. Rhodes told Punk that he didn't like him and Punk called Rhodes "Dusty's kid" as though they were deep cuts. And that was it. That's the main event, being carried on name value alone. It's just two friends trying desperately to get mad at each other for the littlest of things. That's a real shame when you consider who these people are and what they can do when the creative is right.Written by Max Everett
I feel like I haven't seen enough of Sami Zayn since he lost the Undisputed WWE Championship to CM Punk on "WWE Raw" almost three weeks ago. He and GUNTHER teamed up at Saturday Night's Main Event for the chance to make the title bout a four-way, but I feel like we haven't heard from him, when he should have had this crash-out weeks earlier. I guess WWE put it off until tonight for the reveal that he does thankfully have a match during SummerSlam weekend, and we learned it will be a number one contender's bout against Finn Balor.Usually I'm not the biggest fan of crash-out promos, and honestly I feel like they're oftentimes more annoying and grating than not, but this was so very justified on Zayn's part and the emotion felt so real. I really liked how he interrupted Cathy Kelley, who was trying to get an update on Nick Aldis backstage, instead of WWE just having an interview segment set up for him to voice his displeasure over everything that's been happening to him. It helped this feel more genuine.Zayn of course blamed both authority figures, Aldis and Adam Pearce, who he said obviously didn't want him as WWE Champion, as he had to defend the title as a show he wasn't even on, and in days, the "Golden Boy" Cody Rhodes was back to being number one contender. When Rhodes was taken out, "Corporate Poster Boy #2" Punk had a championship opportunity fall out of the sky, when he had to wait around for years.He was distraught at the thought of having to "ride the bench" at SummerSlam, but after a brief shouting match with Pearce, he found out that he will be competing at the "Biggest Party of the Summer," just not for the title in a three way match. I really liked how Pearce set up the number one contender's match for Zayn, but it still wasn't enough, initially, at least, for the "Last Real Good Guy."Zayn wasn't pleased at having to earn his way back in, since Punk and Rhodes never seem to have to, but Pearce told him to take it or leave it. I like that Zayn is kind of saying the quiet parts fans are thinking (or screaming into the void that is social media) out loud. His match against Balor has the potential to be an absolute show-stealer, though I'm not confident Zayn walks out of there with the title opportunity. It could further his character even more, however. This was by far the best thing on the show tonight and I'm thrilled WWE isn't just leaving Zayn on the sidelines at SummerSlam.Written by DaisyRuth
