SmackDown Aug. 6, 2021: 2 things WWE got right

Honestly, seeing WWE sign off on another round of callous roster cuts made it difficult to focus on a significant portion of this week’s SmackDown, but it’s still worth pointing out what the company did well on the two-hour broadcast.

Granted, there weren’t too many true highlights to point out on this mostly mediocre show. WWE chose to fill much of this program with their usual booking tactics that serve to get no one over in the long run, but we did get a couple of highlights worthy of discussion in this piece.

So, let’s dig in and talk about them.

These are the two things WWE got right on the Aug. 6 episode of SmackDown.

Edge and Seth Rollins

For the last couple of weeks, WWE has kept things simple with the Edge vs. Seth Rollins program. It’s a story that has revolved around the desire to be the Univeral Champion with the added layer of Rollins threatening to torpedo Edge’s quality of life back in 2014, and that’s all it needs to be.

The two maintained the steady, solid built this week with a promo exchange that ended with Edge challenging Rollins — who appeared on the show “via satellite” to avoid a confrontation after attacking “The Rated R Superstar” from behind last week — to a match at SummerSlam.

Rollins remained non-commital about it, even threatening to injure Edge’s neck again while asking the Hall of Famer to “think about” whether he really wanted the match, but eventually accepted once Edge called the former WWE Champion “Edge-lite”.

Thus far, Edge and Rollins have produced the most consistent story on the road to WWE’s second-biggest pay-per-view, and this segment proved why these two have earned that accolade.

Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair

It’s so nice to see Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair in a program that doesn’t involve them needing to “co-exist” as a tag team or some other nonsense. Instead, we’re getting a traditional heel (Banks) vs. babyface (Belair) narrative centered around who’s the superior wrestler, which is far more compelling than the gunk these two had to work with leading into WrestleMania 37.

SmackDown opened up with “The Boss” explaining why she attacked Belair at the conclusion of last week’s show, which included her saying that Belair would still be a “rookie” without Banks propping her up. This, of course, prompted “The EST” to interrupt and point out that it was Banks who wanted Belair to pick her after Belair won the Royal Rumble last January.

Oh, and Zelina Vega came out to challenge Belair to a title shot despite having a Washington Generals-esque won/loss record.

After last week’s angle, this opening back-and-forth cemented what the tone of this feud will be. We’ll see if this holds up in the coming weeks.