crown the Interim WWE Women’s Champion<\/a>, after it was announced Rhea Ripley’s status is still up in the air.<\/p>\nFor our money, we think WWE will stack this ladder match up. We’ll see Charlotte Flair come out on top, joining Jade Cargill and Women’s United States Champion Tiffany Stratton, along with two more competitors that will probably be determined this week, or at the very latest, on the final SmackDown before the “Biggest Party of the Summer.”<\/p>\n
Speaking of SummerSlam, it’s now official, and Nick Aldis and Gunther will finally face off, marking the former’s return to in-ring action, his first in WWE, after nearly half a decade. We are\u00a0not<\/em> going to lie, we’re really excited for Aldis to come back. Sure, he’ll probably be another victim to the “Career-Killer” list, but seeing him in a WWE ring, with Gunther no less, is more than worth the price of admission.<\/p>\nWe truly hope Aldis gets physical, and have the Ring General have it with a Spine Shaker or a King’s Cloverleaf.<\/p>\n
From one stellar match to another, WWE SmackDown tonight will more than likely see Undisputed WWE Champion and his challenger Cody Rhodes will more than likely have something to say to each other come this Friday night. They had a bit of a dust-up after defeating Gunther and Sami Zayn last Saturday, with Punk inadvertently (?) hitting Rhodes with the strap of the belt as he exited the ring.<\/p>\n
We’re sure that Rhodes will probably bring it up and ask to talk about it: could it have been accidental or a scare tactic from the “Second City Saint?”<\/p>\n
Last but not least, Lainey Reid and Fallon Henley slayed some legends on their way to claim the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. Jacy Jayne was unable to qualify for the Women’s Ladder Match. That said, it’s only a matter of time until Fatal Influence takes over the Blue brand, and what a heck of a way to start their march to dominance.<\/p>\n
That’s all for WWE SmackDown tonight, July 24, 2026!<\/p>\nWWE SmackDown graphic featuring CM Punk and Cody Rhodes. (Photo Credit: WWE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a crazy night in Madison Square Garden last week at WWE Saturday Night’s Main event, and WWE SmackDown tonight, July 24, 2026, will cover the massive fallout from the nostalgic WWE special. Here’s what you can expect one week out from the “Biggest Party of the Summer,” this Friday night. Let’s run it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3735,"featured_media":164510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2192,4,3],"tags":[403,140,98,8992,8238,602,1765,9723],"class_list":["post-164786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-cm-punk","tag-cody-rhodes","tag-fatal-influence","tag-gunther","tag-nia-jax","tag-nick-aldis","tag-summerslam-2026"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164788,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164786\/revisions\/164788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/07\/11-30-e1784783380597.webp\")
![\"WWE](\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/07\/11-33.webp\")
![\"WWE](\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/07\/11-29.webp\")