WWE heads to another city where there will be rumors of Hulk Hogan sightings. You know, cause he lives in Tampa. Welcome to the July 31 SmackDown!
The Headliners
Also, welcome to the annual Samoa Joe is a contender portion of the WWE schedule!
To be fair, maybe if Raw’s main event wasn’t bottlenecked by an oft-absent MMA star and he wasn’t in his late 30s with a ton of hard miles on his substantial frame, maybe Joe would have held a title on the main roster by now. Injuries and circumstances haven’t made it easy to sustain a push for The Destroyer.
Still, especially with rumors indicating there’s no end in sight for AJ Styles’ WWE Championship run, it’s hard to get too invested in the outcome of the SummerSlam match set up by Joe choking out The Phenomenal One last week. It was a bad ass scene, especially the “tick tock” post-script The Samoan Submission Machine added on to the end. And we should probably just get lost in the story and not worry about the outcome just yet.
But especially coming so shortly after another rematch between AJ and a foe from a former fed that, depending on who you talk to, either never lived up to expectations or took forever to even come close to doing so, this Joe/Styles feud has a lot of baggage to carry from the start. We’ll see how they handle it when AJ responds to Joe’s contract-signing statement tonight.
The Title Scene
That “foe from a former fed” finally earned a belt when he became United States Champion at Extreme Rules. But now Shinsuke Nakamura has become a bystander in Randy Orton’s vicious pursuit of Jeff Hardy. This story would seem to include Nakamaura and his title at some point. How isn’t exactly clear yet, though.
The New Day moved one step closer to SummerSlam Tag Team Titles shot against Bludgeon Brothers when they got their win back from SAnitY last week. Tonight, The Usos and The Bar rekindle their rivalry to determine who will battle Xavier Woods, Big E and Kofi Kingston for the pay-per-view (PPV) spot.
The best babyface in the business (or WWE’s blue corner of it, anyway) aleady punched her ticket for a match against Women’s Champ Carmella in Brooklyn. And thanks to General Manager Paige’s actions, Becky Lynch shouldn’t have to deal with her long-time nemesis James Ellsworth. The Princess of Staten Island did beat Becky’s bestie Charlotte Flair without Jimmy Dream’s help, though, so The Lasskicker shouldn’t overlook her.
Other stuff to keep an eye on:
– Paige also had enough of Zelina Vega and Lana’s internet sniping in the wake of their involvement in Andrade “Cien” Almas and Rusev’s match last Tuesday, so she booked a singles match between the two loud-mouthed ladies for tonight. SummerSlam mixed tag imminent?
– Where does this leave poor Aiden English, other than blamed for ruining a recent string of Rusev Days?
– We haven’t forgotten about Daniel Bryan and The Miz, whose feud seemed to kick off in earnest with last week’s baby-throwing Skull Crushing Finale. We’re just too excited to talk about it. Insert that GIF of Bryan’s Team Hell No partner’s political hero here.
Three weeks until SummerSlam!
What will you be looking for on SmackDown Live tonight?
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