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* Big Cass was a fucking star tonight. Good on him. This is going to sound really weird, but I kind of want to see Cass vs. Corbin now.
* Kind of feel like Dolph Ziggler needs to go away. Send him to New Japan for a while and have him really push that bubbling talent into the next level. It's also likely that he'll get more concussions and his career will be over or something.
* This Gorgeous Truth vs. Goldango stuff is definitely leading to Breeze & Dango turning on Goldust & Truth to form a heel unit, isn't it? I'd have been outraged if I were a USA executive and the only promotion for SmackDown was this comedy angle. Good thing they announced more stuff later.
* I like the introduction of Dana Brooke. She's basically a "young boy" to Emma, so she doesn't need to be amazing or protected too much. She's got the bitch heel stuff down too. Why not give this a shot? I assume this leads to Becky being saved by Sasha Banks after a 2-on-1 beat-down, leading to a tag match somewhere down the line. I liked the injured eye detail and Becky not joking around about it.
* They really had a lot of champions and #1 contenders lose on this show, didn't they? I sometimes wonder if the casual fan switches on, sees all these champions lose and think "What's the fucking point?" and then switch off. I kind of get what they were going with -- they want Charlotte to look vulnerable without Flair, they want Kalisto to look like he's got some sort of edge against Rusev and possibly tease Rusev keeping Lana away from his matches for heat, they wanted a way to get Zayn involved in the IC Title picture and people to hate that Miz has the belt, and they want heat on The Vaudevillains. But it all feels like it's in one big melting pot.
* I'm happy for Sin Cara though. I do wonder if some of these wins was to sort of let guys off the hook a bit if they were feeling job pressure after the firings. Paige also looked really good in her match. She showed up tonight. They probably could have had Rusev beat Sin Cara and Charlotte make Paige tap though.
* Weirdly intrigued by The Shining Stars. I wonder if they are just going to be a tag team or if they have something planned. A lot of people are completely down on them already because of how flat the vignettes have been, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do something sorta major. Not sure what it could be though.
* Zack Ryder performed well in his segment. I'm not the biggest fan of the guy, so it is a compliment coming from me. I feel like they could have had Shane announce the Owens vs. Ryder match for SmackDown and it would have been an extra hook. These three hour shows are fatiguing and it plays into how these guys are perceived by audiences.
* Corbin doesn't suck as much as some say. I'm not a huge fan, but he's got something there. It isn't "presence" as they tell us. He seems to work hard and has some tricky things to learn down. I like that he is presented as being a bit green and a guy that can make mistakes. It allows him to lose and not lose any monster credibility. When he gets momentum going he will still be taken seriously. He'll have "ripened." I thought he and Ziggler did a good job trying to create visuals for their shortish match that helped it stand out as organic, and Ziggler going for the spot he beat Corbin with at Payback and it not working this time played off that well.
* Ric Flair is hilarious as a crazy old man.
* AJ Styles and Roman Reigns have seriously good chemistry. The energy for that segment was wonderful. I thought Gallows looked like a bit of a chump going down so easily, but it is the World Heavyweight Champion and he's a guy finding his feet in WWE. He takes a loss, but then he comes back as a ruthless heel and helps beat down Reigns and The Usos. He's fine.
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