The blue brand needs to stop repeating its mistakes
Last night’s episode of SmackDown on July 17, 2026, was a masterclass in the WWE creative team’s inability to balance momentum with pure, unadulterated nonsense. We have been conditioned to accept that Friday nights are the flagship of the company, yet the pacing issues that plagued NXT's recent output are starting to bleed into the top-tier programming. When you have two hours to burn, you don't spend twenty minutes of it on a recap video that nobody asked for.
First, let’s talk about the good. Carmelo Hayes is the truth. Watching him dismantle his opponent with that blistering springboard clothesline into a standing neckbreaker was a reminder that some guys actually study the craft. He moves with a purpose that makes the rest of the mid-card look like they’re walking through mud in slow motion. It was clean, it was crisp, and it finally felt like someone in gorilla position understands that technical wrestling sells tickets.
Then we had the tag team chaos. The Bloodline reunion act is starting to feel like that one friend who refuses to leave the party at 3:00 AM because they think they’re still the life of the room. It was fun for a while, but the constant interference spots have become a crutch. If you need three men to distract a referee just to get a rollup victory, you aren't a dominant faction. You’re just a group of guys who forgot how to finish a match without a cheap pop.
Booking choices that flat out stunk up the joint
The refusal to let the women’s division breathe is the most frustrating part of this entire product. We saw Jade Cargill put in a dominant performance for 8 minutes, but rather than letting her have a clean finish that actually propels her toward a title shot, we had a chaotic interference sequence. It felt like a low-budget soap opera where the writers forgot to give the protagonist an actual script.
It’s not just a minor gripe; it’s a systematic issue. We keep hearing about how this is a new era of professional wrestling, yet we are still clinging to the same baggage that Damian Priest correctly called out as a nuisance. If the performers are getting harassed and the fans are losing their minds over irrelevant segments, the show suffers. When you treat your talent like props in a commercial that runs for twenty-two minutes, you lose the audience by the halfway mark.
I also have to address the ridiculous segment with the returning veterans. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but seeing these guys walk out to clear the ring and pose for the hard camera in 2026 feels like a middle finger to every young talent grinding on the indie scene. It wasn’t a moment; it was filler masquerading as a spectacle. It wasted precious airtime that could have been used to actually build a secondary feud that doesn't involve a championship belt.
Finding the heart in the madness
However, credit where it’s due: the main event between Solo Sikoa and LA Knight actually delivered. There was a genuine intensity to their locking horns that kept me from checking my phone for once. Knight took a nasty looking powerbomb off the middle rope that looked like it would end a man's career, but the near-fall at the 19 minute mark had me genuinely standing up in my living room.
We need more of that grit. The industry has survived long enough to know that viewers want to see athletes who act like they care about the match they are in. When you strip away the pyro and the over-the-top entrance themes, you just have two guys in a ring trying to prove who is better. That is the fundamental beauty of the sport.
Ultimately, WWE is currently serving us a chaotic smoothie of genius, mediocrity, and just plain incompetence. For every ten-star performance, we get a segment that suggests the creative team is writing scripts on the back of napkins at the catering table. If they want to keep the momentum going through the rest of the year, they need to cut the dead weight. Less talking, more mat burning, and for the love of everything, stop letting the veterans bury the future just for a cheap pop in the second hour.
