Opinion: The biggest winners and losers of last night's SmackDown (July 2)

Unfortunately, it was more of the same on last night's SmackDown. While the red brand made a clear step in the right direction on Monday night, with Paul Heyman's fingerprints over much of that show, SmackDown looked like it hadn't experienced any major changes yet as "wild card" shenanigans and Shane McMahon dominated much of the show.

Eric Bischoff apparently hasn't arrived on the scene yet. Thankfully nobody looked really bad though, so I guess that's a positive, but it was still a formulaic, missable show.

Hopefully, the blue brand will get up to par with Raw soon. That's surprising to say, as SmackDown has usually been the better of the two shows since the brand split began again in July 2016, but it's now where we are.

Who got the most and least out of last night's show?

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Winner: Kofi Kingston

After a month toiling with Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston is finally back in a good rivalry again. Sure, it's more "wild card" nonsense that will hopefully end after Extreme Rules, but Joe is good enough to mask the logical inconsistency.

Samoa Joe accused the champion of being a fraud, of "hustling" people and his own New Day brothers to get where he is.

It's basic stuff, but Joe is such a talent on a microphone that he makes it all sound so authentic.

Kofi Kingston responded by flipping Samoa Joe off, giving an indication that not only he but the show itself, would be taking an edgier turn. Flipping someone off is again, basic, but compared to the sterile programming that's dominated the company for years, it's a step in the right direction.

Kofi vs. Joe should easily be one of the better matches to take place at Extreme Rules. If the show was going to start with an opening promo as Raw didn't, why couldn't it have been this instead of yet another Shane McMahon segment?

Winners: Heavy Machinery

Heavy Machinery defeated Dolph Ziggler and Kevin Owens and secured a title shot against Daniel Bryan and Rowan at Extreme Rules. Again, there's no chance that they're going to win, but it's a good way for them to get a bigger spotlight than they had been getting before.

I'm doubtful of their ability to put in a world-shattering performance that makes them at Extreme Rules, but Daniel Bryan is as good an opponent to work with as any. We'll see what happens.

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Loser: Nikki Cross

Nikki Cross wins on Raw and then loses on SmackDown. And while this won't set her back too much, this match still didn't need to happen. It's stuff like this that adds up over time and makes fans stop caring about a wrestler because the push is so inconsistent.

It also highlights another problem with the "wild card" rule. Hopefully, this is going to end when Eric Bischoff is fully in his position opposite Paul Heyman on the red brand. It makes little sense to have those two in charge of each show if talent is just going to jump around and render the brand split pointless.

Winner: Ali

It was nice to see Ali back after a while of being off television. He delivered an authentic, hearty promo vowing that he was going to become the WWE Champion. Stuff like this is why Ali was called up from 205 Live to begin with, and though injury derailed his winter push, it looks like he may soon be getting a summer one.

With Kofi Kingston as champion, he probably won't be getting pushed to a title shot quite yet, but we'll see how it goes down. If Brock Lesnar cashes in on Kofi Kingston, as I still expect him to do, Ali would actually make an ideal opponent.

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Winner: Andrade

Welcome back, Andrade.

There was nothing special about this match, but Andrade needed to come back from his leave of absence and start somewhere. A decent match with a victory over Apollo Crews is a fine enough place to start.

He still needs to break through the glass ceiling of not being able to win a big match, but we'll see how that goes down in the coming months.

Winner: Aleister Black

The rambling promos continued, but at least now they're leading somewhere. If WWE is going to hype Aleister Black's singles debut on the SmackDown brand coming at a pay per view, it probably suggests that there are bigger plans for him to come. That's good. We can only hope that it isn't too late, though.

After three months of wheel spinning with promos that have at times been downright ridiculous, there's a good chance that Aleister Black has lost the traction he could have gotten if he had simply hit the ground running after coming to SmackDown after WrestleMania. We've all seen what's happened to Lacey Evans after months of doing bizarre promos before WrestleMania, after all. She hasn't gotten over.

Of course, Aleister Black is a lot more talented than Lacey Evans is, so hopefully he'll have a softer landing. Let's see how this build continues.