WWE SmackDown Rankings: Shinsuke Nakamura Beats John Cena

Smackdown. Photo by WWE.com

The SmackDown Live Mid Card Division

Highlights of the Division

The screw-job finish of the United States Championship match on Smackdown Live ensured that Kevin Owens gets one more crack at the gold. His matches with AJ Styles have been no pun intended—Phenomenal. Both men have been positioned to be equal footed competitors who can’t break out of the championship deadlock in the past few weeks. The prestige of the championship has suffered based on the amount of times it has swap hands but that should be resolved at Summerslam. With Shane McMahon refereeing the title bout, we should get a definitive champion when the pay per view concludes.

The rise of Aiden English is a welcoming sighting in the mid-card division even though he’s taking a page out of the playbook of Elias from RAW. Since his match with Randy Orton, the Shakespeare of Song has knocked off Tye Dillinger at Battleground and Sami Zayn this past Tuesday—but he’ll need to be pushed consistently to break out of his pretender status within the division. He has a great gimmick that makes him stand out of the pack and knows how to irritate the crowd with his opera melodies. Smackdown might have found a diamond in the rough that they could utilize for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, for the Rest of the Division

Chad Gable might have lost to Rusev but he did look impressive throughout the match. The former Smackdown Tag Team Champion channeled his inner Kurt Angle and was out-wrestling the Bulgarian Brute for huge chunks of the bout but got dominated at the very end. Gable should be presented moving forward as a man who’s willing to bring the fight to any competitor and willing to lay it all on the line for a victory—no matter who he’s facing against. He might have lost to AJ Styles, Kevin Owens and Rusev, but best believe that those three men know that they were in a battle with a true wrestling alpha.  

Let’s see the rankings for the division this week.

WWE United States Champion: AJ Styles (15 Wins – 12 Losses)

Contenders

• No. 1 Contender: Kevin Owens (14 Wins – 15 Losses)
• Contender No. 2: Sami Zayn (12 Wins – 17 Losses)
• Contender No. 3: Baron Corbin (7 Wins – 16 Losses) (MITB Winner)
• Contender No. 4: Chris Jericho (5 Wins – 9 Losses)
• Contender No. 5: Rusev (4 Wins – 9 Losses)
• Contender No. 6: Mike Kanellis (1 Win – 2 Losses)

Pretenders

• Pretender No. 1: Tye Dillinger (5 Wins – 3 Losses)
• Pretender No. 2: Dolph Ziggler (5 Wins – 15 Losses)
• Pretender No. 3: Chad Gable (7 Wins – 9 Losses)
• Pretender No. 4: Aiden English (4 Wins – 7 Losses)
• Pretender No. 5: Sin Cara (2 Wins – 7 Losses)
• Pretender No. 6: Luke Harper (2 Wins – 11 Losses)
• Pretender No. 7: Erick Rowan (1 Win – 6 Losses)