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?

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?