3 things that went wrong on the June 17 episode of SmackDown

An astonishing 44 percent of 101 Twitter voters gave this week’s episode of WWE SmackDown a favorable review. Hopefully, none of those folks made their decision based on Vince McMahon’s gross sportswashing appearance to start the show.

It’s just as likely that the audience’s perception of what was a great main event for the Undisputed Universal Championship aided the positive response to the episode, as did the lack of screwy finishes.

However, this doesn’t mean that this week’s SmackDown was error-free. In fact, we’re going to discuss a few of those missteps right now.

Three things went wrong on the June 17 episode of SmackDown.

Brock Lesnar returns to confront Roman Reigns…again

Following a tremendous main event for the Universal Title, which ended with Roman Reigns retaining over Riddle via pinfall, “The Tribal Chief” addressed the audience and declared that no one was left to challenge him for the consolidated titles.

Apparently, WWE agreed with this sentiment, which is why they booked a repeat opponent for Reigns to return and step up to the champ: former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar stormed to the ring, offered Reigns a handshake, and, when Reigns declined to reciprocate the gesture, hoisted Reigns up and delivered the F-5 (which he also gave to The Usos). In terms of execution, this worked with the live crowds, who were happy to see Lesnar and were glad to see him get the upper hand over a guy who just beat a wrestler that they were into.

That said…Lesnar again? We’ve already seen this guy beat Lesnar clean at WrestleMania 38, a match that everyone thought would bring this overexposed feud to an end for a while. But this is what happens when you build up only a few babyfaces and those few babyfaces end up on the injured list.

Now we have to sit through these two at SummerSlam in a Last Man Standing match, which guarantees to be plodding.

Naming Sheamus and Drew McIntyre are in the Money in the Bank Ladder match

If WWE wanted Sheamus and Drew McIntyre in the men’s Money in the Bank Ladder match, why didn’t it book them in respect singles matches that they could win clean instead of scripting them to fight to a no contest last week to set up Adam Peace just putting both in the match?

As a positive, putting McIntyre and Sheamus in the ladder match is a good thing, but WWE could’ve accomplished this without making everyone who cared about who won or lost that match feel like they wasted their time.

And people wonder why most WWE matches seem inconsequential…

The “Last Laugh Match”

So, WWE put Baron Corbin and Madcap Moss in a No Holds Barred match at Hell in a Cell, a match that ended with Moss “Pillmanizing” Corbin’s neck with a chair and the ring steps, and after that, decided that this program needed another match?

But don’t worry, the company made sure to escalate things by adding a stipulation where…the loser gets laughed out of the building. Otherwise, it’s a traditional wrestling match. The match was fine and, to WWE’s credit, they did put the right guy over by having Moss win after hitting two neckbreakers. It just seemed unnecessary given what we saw these two do after Hell in a Cell.