It was a brilliant episode of SmackDown this week with plenty of progression coming off the back of Backlash. Stories were continued and the crowd was fully invested in everything that was happening as the blue brand began to build towards No Mercy, so what are the five major talking point from last night's show?
5. Becky Lynch has a crazy challenger
SmackDown wasted little time in announcing Becky Lynch's first challenge for the new SmackDown Women's Championship. A fatal fiveway involving all the losing participants from Backlash's title match competed and the winner became the number one contender for Lynch's title.
After another entertaining match between the five women, it would be Alexa Bliss who earned the victory and the right to call herself the number one contender. Bliss took advantage after Carmella's superkick saw Nikki Bella taken out, Bliss threw Carmella out of the ring and simply stole the pinfall from her to win the match.
This allows the great feud between Carmella and Nikki to continue, likely with a match at No Mercy and gives Bliss a major push which makes her seem like a big deal immediately. Bliss has gone through a slight character change as she has begun dressing up as Harley Quinn and it would be good to see her take that into her character as a crazy lunatic as she begins to feud with Lynch over the belt.
4. SmackDown signs a new free agent
With Heath Slater's free agent storyline officially coming to an end by signing his SmackDown contract, the blue brand picked up a new free agent; Jack Swagger. The former World Heavyweight Champion was drafted to Raw originally but barely competed and struggled to make an impact on the show. His last appearance was on this week's show where he was defeated by Jinder Mahal before it was revealed his contract was coming up in a post-match interview.
The storyline is that he wasn't re-signed by Mick Foley and instead SmackDown picked him up which is great to see as these are the types of things that should be happening with the brand split, both shows trying to be better than each other. Swagger came out and went face to face with Baron Corbin which could be a tease for his first feud since his move before he gave a passionate promo about how things were going to change in his career. If SmackDown can get something out of Swagger there could be a good storyline of them using talent better than Raw, after all, the blue brand's authority figures constantly state they give people chances so let's see how it goes for Swagger.
3. The Miz makes his demands
Before his match at Backlash, The Miz made it clear to SmackDown GM, Daniel Bryan that he wanted his contract to be re-negotiated and the A-Lister continued that story on this week's SmackDown. Bryan told Miz that he would have to defend his title against Dolph Ziggler to which The Miz simply left the ring and exited through the crowd.
The Intercontinental Champion would re-appear in the main event, taking out the jobber that Bryan had enlisted to team with AJ Styles and instead partnered the World Champion himself, continuing to defy Bryan's orders.
2. John Cena returns
SmackDown kicked off in blockbuster fashion this week as John Cena made his return to the company after being kept away from T.V. since his defeat at SummerSlam to AJ Styles. Cena made his return to the company and made it clear to everyone he intends on becoming the WWE World Champion and drawing level with Ric Flair's record, something that was actually cheered by the fans.
Of course, Dean Ambrose had plenty to say about that and the two began to trade major verbal blows with Cena saying that Stone Cold was right on his podcast when he told Ambrose he had lost his edge, before Ambrose replied by telling Cena he can't hack working at this level anymore and he is simply a puppet for the company. It was a great opening segment and the pair teamed up again, later on, to face Styles and Miz, with Ambrose sticking it to Cena to close the show.
1. WWE World Championship match set
Shane McMahon set the official WWE World Championship match for No Mercy in the opening segment this week as he announced it would be AJ Styles defending his gold against former champion Dean Ambrose and the returning John Cena in a triple threat match.
It was a huge announcement from Shane'O with SmackDown really setting the bar early for their next PPV as they now have several weeks to build and create plenty of tension between all three men, something they did excellently during their two segments together. There is serious excitement and hope in the air about SmackDown right now who are putting on great shows on a weekly basis and this was just another example of that this week.