WWE SmackDown 7/31/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Wrestling Inc. StaffSat, August 1, 2026 at 3:51 AM UTC

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Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," in this case the final episode of WWE programming before SummerSlam 2026! Among other things, we got a title-for-title tag team match and the last interim women's title ladder match qualifier, both of which we will discuss in the column, because the Wrestling Inc. staff have thoughts!

Of course, we don't have thoughts on everything that went down Friday night — with apologies to Rey Fenix vs. JD McDonagh — because this column is only for our opinions on the matches and segments that stood out to us the most. If you want a comprehensive look at the show, feel free to check out our "WWE SmackDown" 7/31/26 results page. If you're looking for the WINC crew's thoughts about our biggest positives and negatives from this week's edition of the blue brand, you're in the right place. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 7/31/26 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"

Read more: WWE SmackDown Stars: Meet Their Wives & Girlfriends

Hated: Too much for one opener

Opening segments are meant to set a good tone for any given weekly wrestling show and make the fans excited for what's to come. I personally don't think either of those things were accomplished in the opening segment from this edition of "SmackDown."

I can see what WWE was going for between Sami Zayn and Finn Balor by bringing up their shared experiences when it came to being screwed out of world championship belts. While I think it was a commendable effort, I just don't think it quite landed as it was intended to. For one thing, Zayn's current gimmick as "The Last Real Good Guy" has gotten old really fast. I will always like Zayn, but all he's done is complain over and over again every week which has become tedious to watch after a while. I don't think this segment did any favors for Balor either, as he was dredging up stuff from the past in 2016 that didn't really feel super relevant at this point in time. Balor is far from the first person that WWE has tried to do something similar with (see the entire SummerSlam World Heavyweight Championship storyline between Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins), but it just never really lands for me and feels like a really lazy way of booking things. I also feel like it's worth pointing out that WWE had Balor and Zayn say all these things about their past failures tonight when their booking is the reason for said failures, making it that much harder for my brain to process their thinking with this entire thing.

My other major issue with this segment was the involvement of GUNTHER and Nick Aldis. It felt like WWE was trying to combine one too many storylines into this opening segment by having GUNTHER attack Zayn and Balor, get into Adam Pearce's face, brawl with them on the entrance ramp, and then have Nick Aldis come to save the day by brawling with GUNTHER. GUNTHER and Aldis is a big enough SummerSlam match to warrant its own in-ring segment on this show. The separation of these two segments just would've made everything much more enjoyable for me to watch as a viewer, especially given that Aldis has a video of his own anyways later on this show to give more screen time to this storyline.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Loved: Nick Aldis gets upper hand on GUNTHER

I don't believe there's any chance of Nick Aldis winning against GUNTHER this weekend at SummerSlam, but I did really like what WWE did with him tonight. The opening segment of the show was a bit of a mess, but it ended with Aldis locking in a Texas Cloverleaf on "The Ringer General," which I loved.

Aldis has smacked GUNTHER around here and there, including with the title at Saturday Night's Main Event, and with a microphone during their contract signing segment last week, but seeing him apply a hold to GUNTHER felt entirely different. It was a good different ahead of the match, however, and made things feel a little more serious, like it leveled the playing field a bit better.

In addition to getting the upper hand on his opponent, Aldis also got a nice video package with a few highlights of his career. The segment started out with the former NWA Heavyweight Champion saying that being "SmackDown" General Manager wasn't his first dream, being a professional wrestler was. The package then cut to footage from his previous matches in the NWA, AAA, and TNA, and showed him facing off against notable faces who have spent time in WWE, or are in the company now, including Cody Rhodes, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, and more. If you weren't familiar with the career of Aldis before, this didn't do too terribly much, but it did highlight how fantastic he's looked (and I'm sure still looks) and showed him off with some gold against faces familiar to any wrestling fan.

I also liked that he explained he was fine leaving the active, full-time in-ring career behind, until GUNTHER put his hands on him. He said a man can only be pushed so far until he's left with one final choice, and his is to "lace them up tight and face GUNTHER one-on-one like a man." Simple, and kind of obvious, but effective enough.

I've also noticed that it hasn't been said on-air that the match will officially end the in-ring career of Aldis. GUNTHER has certainly said it in interviews promoting their match on Saturday, but it's not been official on graphics or anything. I suppose there's a slight chance that Aldis could win, but even if he doesn't, I wouldn't be mad if he continued wrestling here and there, as him going back to the general manager position, on either brand, feels odd. But for once, this is an unknown I don't mind when it comes to WWE, and I'm curious what happens not just in tomorrow's match, but moving forward.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Hated: More proof that the tag division is a mess

It's that time again where I lament about the state of (WWE brand) tag team division. The firings of Motor City Machine Guns (who just debuted in AEW last night), Tanga Loa, JC Mateo, and the entirety of the Wyatt Family wiped out most of the tag division. Tommaso Ciampa left the company (and is also in AEW) and Johnny Gargano has been depressed planking for months. The SmackDown tag division is in dire straits with just four tag teams.

Nowhere was that hole more glaring than when R-Truth and Damian Priest put up their tag titles against the AAA World Tag Team Champion War Raiders in a title for title match. The match ended in a no contest after members of both tag teams shoved the ref. I know, yet another match ending in a non-finish. Who cares if two sets of titles were on the line? While they were still brawling, one of the blue brand's other tag teams, MFT, got involved. They even brought their dad, Haku! Sure, why not? Nothing else makes sense. This segment involved three of the four teams on SmackDown — although Fraxiom did appear in a backstage segment, so all four got checked off of the creative team's list (in that they all appeared; not that there was anything creative happening).

There are zero tag team matches happening on either night of SummerSlam this weekend — not that the tag titles are defended on PLEs often. The tag team division hasn't been a priority in WWE for many years. Tonight is just another example of creative throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. The tag team division and fans of tag team wrestling — myself included — deserve better, even though we know better than to expect it.

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Written by Samantha Schipman

Loved: Lash Legend makes a stacked field

Lash Legend beat Giulia in a rather disgustingly short match on Friday to qualify for the Interim WWE Women's Championship ladder match this weekend. But that shouldn't take too much away from the fact that she now rounds out a stacked field of competitors, all worthy in their own right of walking out with the title.

The field now consists of three former women's champions — Charlotte Flair, Tiffany Stratton, and Jade Cargill — and two who very well should be someday in Chelsea Green and Legend. All will undoubtedly give a little bit of everything needed in the ladder match to make it a spectacle.

Flair is by far the most experienced, an established ring general with her fair share of experience in the setting. Stratton thrives as a high-flyer and a ladder match is one of the best stipulations in wrestling to draw from her gymnastics background. Legend and Cargill are two powerhouses that will counter-balance that speed and agility with sheer strength. Green adds unfiltered entertainment and a surprise element as the underdog more than capable of snatching victory.

The ingredients are all there for a really enjoyable experience; a showcase of the women's division on Friday night. There was really no bad result to come from Friday's qualifier, and although it would have been nice to see Giulia get a fairer shake of things, Legend winning put another great talent into the mix. That has to be appreciated.

Written by Max Everett

Hated: Lash Legend makes quick work of Giulia

While I absolutely think Lash Legend should be getting more opportunities on "SmackDown," her insanely quick victory over Giulia tonight to qualify for the five-woman ladder match for the interim WWE Women's Championship at SummerSlam didn't sit right with me. I've been riding hard for Giulia since she arrived to WWE and started absolutely crushing it in "WWE NXT," but her time on the main roster has been nothing short of a joke.

Legend, the heel, got the clean, basically squash-length, victory over Giulia after breaking out of an octopus hold and countering into the Lash Extension. I think I would have hated this less had Nia Jax gotten involved, distracting the referee for Legend to do something nefarious, or hitting Giulia herself while the ref's back was turned. Legend and Jax haven't wrestled a match, and haven't really done anything together on television, since the end of May, and just the simple aspect of Jax helping her partner out would have kind of re-established their team, reminding fans just who they are together.

I don't understand why this needed to be such a short match, as it really didn't make Legend look good, either. She hit her finish, countered a few things, but there just wasn't enough time for her to really look impressive. There was enough time to run video packages for the World Heavyweight Championship match on Sunday, however, and the Hell in a Cell set for tomorrow. Packages that will run on the pre-shows for SummerSlam and didn't really belong here.

Giulia hasn't done anything notable on "SmackDown" for over a month now, with the last thing being a victory over Kiana James. After the match, she was taken out by Blake Monroe, who she faced off against a few years ago in Stardom, which could have led to something really fun. But, nope, Monroe was also nowhere to be found on the show. "SmackDown's" women's division may have more talent than "Raw's" right now, but they're all still being used terribly, if at all.

This was probably the biggest "SmackDown" fail of the night. It's nothing against Legend, and I really hope she does well and has the best showing possible in tomorrow's ladder match — though that's a match with really only two possible winners to capture the interim WWE Women's title, so whoever won this qualifying match tonight sadly wasn't getting too far, anyway.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Loved: CM Punk and Cody Rhodes finally do something

I have not been the biggest fan of the Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk feud heading into SummerSlam, mostly because I think babyface vs. babyface feuds where nobody wants to hurt anyone because friendship are kinda boring. All these two have done for the most part is talk about how they're friends and accidentally smack each other, and for the most part, that's not for me. This week's go-home segment between the two started out very similarly, and had me begging for someone — anyone — to stop talking about friendship and actually throw hands.

Fortunately, they eventually did just that. It was far too little and way too late, but Rhodes and Punk finally got fed up with talking to each other and actually started fighting. It was a decent little brawl, too, as they actually got to whale on each other for a few minutes before people started flooding out to separate them. The shot of the two men fighting on the announce table was a good image, and it was nice to close out the last segment before SummerSlam with something physical. Lord knows this "feud" desperately needed it.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

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