What we learned from the WWE this week: July 03, 2017

#5 Chad Gable is ready for a single’s push

Bright future.

One highlight of Smackdown Live this week was the impromptu match between AJ Styles and Chad Gable. After both losing to Kevin Owens in singles competition recently, Smackdown GM Daniel Bryan decided to have the two wrestle each other in a ‘win, and you’re in’ match for the number one contender’s battle royal.

As you might expect, the match was a technical masterpiece with both men demonstrating their raw talent for mat-based, submission style wrestling. It was widely assumed that AJ would get the victory, but this didn’t seem to take away from the enjoyment of the affair.

For one reason or another, American Alpha has not been able to reach the heights of popularity they once enjoyed down on NXT. Their involvement in Smackdown Live has been minimal, and their championship reign has now become a distant memory. Fans knew that both were richly talented in their own right, and would make excellent single’s stars, but their treatment so far as a tag team has raised many an alarm bell in terms of their future.

Thankfully, at least for Gable, it looks like the Smackdown Live creative team are willing to give him the spotlight. If his performance here against AJ Styles is anything to go by, we can expect the Olympian to appear in more high profile singles matches on Tuesday nights going forward.

With the US title picture currently filled by KO and AJ, and with other superstars like Nakamura and Sami Zayn on the horizon, it is uncertain whether Gable will be getting his hands on a belt anytime soon, but there are still plenty of other guys for him to compete against.