As seen on tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live, AJ Styles pinned Chris Jericho in a Fatal 3-Way for US Championship to capture the title. Kevin Owens announced after the match that he wants his rematch for the Title on next week’s show.
Also confirmed for next week’s show is John Cena facing Nakamura for a shot at the WWE Championship against Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam.
Ross says that while this past Sunday’s Battleground PPV has been widely criticized by fans and critics alike, he doesn’t believe any of that should be placed at the feet of the talent who he thought worked very hard on Sunday night. He believes we’re living in a society where the glass is always half empty, when in reality it could be half full as well.
He says that sometimes WWE has the tendency to book themselves into a corner, and that might have been the case this past Sunday. With a Flag Match and a Punjabi Prison match, WWE removed the drama of false finishes and this might have been a negative to the show’s overall presentation.
He thought Kevin Owens and A.J. Styles had a very good match, but there was an intangible missing and that prevented it from being great. He says that if he was booking a territory today two of the first individuals he’d want to sign are Owens and Styles. Ross also thought Cena & Rusev worked hard in their match despite the live crowd being somewhat uninterested.
Ross thought all the women worked hard in their match as well and while Natalya winning was a surprise, Ross thinks this was a great booking decision by WWE. Charlotte is obviously the alpha female in WWE right now but she needs opponents, so Ross thinks it’s only a matter of time before this Natalya win results in a positive situation for Charlotte.
As previously reported, Emma voiced her frustrations on Twitter over not being used on weekly WWE RAW programming. She wrote, “watching Alexa Vs Bayley… Then Sasha and Nia.. Love watching others get more opportunities that I never get! Cool..”
This week Emma got her wish and was booked in a one-sided match against Nia Jax on RAW. After her loss against Nia, Emma took to Twitter and comment about the loss and also attempted to take a dig at Alexa Bliss’ jacket:
Alexa caught wind of the dig and pointed out how Emma doesn’t even have any merchandise:
As seen on Monday’s episode of RAW, rapper Wale was ringside for the show in Washington, DC. Corey Graves mentioned a meeting with Wale “in Richmond” today, which is where tonight’s SmackDown & 205 Live tapings will take place from. It will be interesting to see if WWE does anything with him on tonight’s show.
Wale appeared on the July 4th episode of SmackDown Live as the host for the rap battle between The New Day and The Usos. You can check out footage from that appearance below:
As seen on Monday’s episode of RAW, Big Cass destroyed The Big Show after he came down to make the save for Enzo Amore.
Dave Meltzer mentioned on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Radio that Big Cass vs. The Big Show at this year’s SummerSlam event is the direction WWE is going with this feud. Meltzer indicated previously that this match may be going down at SummerSlam, but after Monday’s attack on The Big Show it is much more clearer now that this match will take place at the Summer blockbuster event.
WWE officials are very high on Big Cass, mainly because of his look and his size. He is expected to receive a push coming out of his split from Enzo Amore.
Russo is joined on today’s show by Skull Von Crush (Big Vito), his old co-host from Vicious Vincent’s World of Wrestling in the early 90’s. They will discuss Sunday’s Battleground PPV.
Russo says that without entertaining characters and in depth storylines, these shows are just full ok fake fights. That’s not what made him a fan of wrestling many years ago, and he believes that’s a big reason why so many mainstream fans have left the product over the last several years.
He thought the opening match of the show between The Usos and The New Day was a very exciting match and all the guys worked hard, but they started the show at such a high octane pace, that it almost made it impossible to follow. He also says the one superkick that was delivered to Xavier Woods from across the ring looked incredible and it looked like it should have legitimately killed him. Having him kick out of a spot like that doesn’t do anything good for the business.
Vito says that he agrees entirely and he felt that this match negatively affected the matches that followed. He thought the match between A.J. Styles and Kevin Owens was the worst match he’s ever seen Styles work, and that should never be the case because Owens is a good worker as well. The finish of this match was so anti-climatic after all the false finishes we saw in the opening match of the show.
