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Well it’s another Friday night and so here we all gather for WWE Smackdown. As of my preview writing there are 0 matches announced for the event tonight, so there’s that. The big story on the blue brand last week was Gunther demolishing Smackdown GM Nick Aldis to close the show. That should of course lead to Aldis and Gunther at SummerSlam but we’ll likely get a tad closer to that reality here. In the mean time Adam Pearce is back here, likely to make more matches for RAW. Tomorrow at SNME we’ve got WWE champion CM Punk and Cody Rhodes teaming up against Gunther and Sami Zayn, so that’ll likely get some play tonight. Still no official word on WWE women’s champion Rhea Ripley so the women’s division is still just a lot of nothing. To that end last week Jade Cargill broke Alexa Bliss’s arm so expect Charlotte Flair to be involved with wanting retribution. Last week Baron Corbin showed back up and ruined a perfectly good match between Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes, so expect Corbin to enter the US title picture along with Ricky Saints still lurking about. Blake Monroe wasn’t on TV last week, apparently they couldn’t find 45 seconds for her attack on Chelsea Green to make air. R-Truth and Damian Priest are still allegedly lining up a title for title match with the War Raiders, though we’ll see if anything ever comes of that. The Bloodline BS has continued to infect Smackdown, so I expect Jimmy Uso to be here to once again look for Solo Sikoa. Finn Balor got a win last week, but still no direction. Still nothing for Ilja Dragunov, Jordynne Grace, or Shinsuke Nakamura while Johnny Gargano is still just being a depressed slug, and still no word on returns for Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, or Kevin Owens. WWE has a very good roster right now but man, they really need to utilize them better. Anyway last week was at least a step in the right direction for episodic television, so let’s hope tonight is even better.

First a recap of last week, mostly the stuff with CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, the whole WWE title picture really, as well as Gunther’s attack on Nick Aldis.

After the recap here comes Gunther as Joe Tessitore and Wade Barrett welcome us to the show in Albany, New York. Gunther, showered in boos, gets a mic and eventually has to address the elephant in the room. He’s prided himself on being a professional, but since coming back to Smackdown he’s been mistreated. Aldis might be jealous, and Gunther should be standing here as WWE champion. The only thing stopping him is Nick Aldis. Aldis is the one who’s made this situation personal. So now he’s being forced to team up with Sami Zayn tomorrow to take on Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. Sami is a bum and beneath Gunther, this position is unacceptable. Adam Pearce interrupts and says we’ve all heard enough from Gunther. Feel however you want but the only thing Gunther should be thanking Pearce for saving Gunther’s job. Pearce recaps what Gunther’s been doing lately and he says if Gunther worked for Pearce then Pearce would have fired Gunther. For reasons beyond Pearce’s knowing we’re still here though. Pearce says that if Gunther had just listened last week he’d have heard that if Gunther and Sami win at SNME they’re entered to the SummerSlam main event and it becomes a Fatal 4-Way. For some reason Aldis has kept lobbying for Gunther and that stipulation is still in place. That brings out Cody, he does half his entrance then sprints into the ring and attacks Gunther. Cody punches the big Austrian out of the ring then gets a mic and says Gunther gets handed another stipulation. Gunther kicked a car door into Cody’s head and now Cody is attacking him on sight, and promises Gunther will not even make it to SNME if he has his way. Cody’s read, Gunther looks ready, how about them one on one tonight. Pearce seems to like the idea and makes that match. Gunther’s position is clear but he meandered a bit in his promo because he had to include Aldis as a talking point. Cody had good fire and when he gets to just cut loose like that it’s usually to his benefit.

We get a video from Adam Pearce, finally giving us an update on WWE women’s champion Rhea Ripley. Ripley is close to recovery but wont be cleared for SummerSlam. So at SummerSlam we’ll have an interim women’s title match in a ladder match. We’ll have 5 qualifying matches between now and the event. The title’s fake so is there really any difference between an interim champion and just stripping Ripley? To that end though we’re getting Jade Cargill vs. Nia Jax tonight for a spot in that match. Also we’ll get Tiffany Stratton vs. Jacy Jayne in another qualifying match.

To the ring, here’s Finn Balor. Balor will break his back trying to make Talla Tonga look good after this break.

Match #1: Finn Balor vs. Talla Tonga w/ Tama Tonga

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