WWE SmackDown - 6/19/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 We Loved

It's Juneteenth, and "WWE SmackDown" celebrated the holiday in Kansas City, MO. The show was a marathon of setups for next weekend's Night of Champions PLE, with a KOTR finalist determined, as well as a QOTR finalist, two title matches, and a number-one contender's match. If you want to read more, the WWE SmackDown 6/19/2026 results page is your friend.

Now, it's time to talk about what worked and what didn't work, regarding the three-hour show. With such a long runtime, there was much to love, including the blistering match between Ricky Saints and Carmelo Hayes, but there was also much to hate, like the abysmal opening world title match/setup for Night of Champions' title match. As always, the comments section will be open if you want to continue the question.

Without further ado, let's get to what Wrestling Inc. hated and what we loved from Friday's big show.

Oh boy, I genuinely don't even know where to begin with this one.

I knew heading into this edition of "SmackDown" that I wasn't super excited about the Undisputed WWE Championship match between Cody Rhodes and GUNTHER as Sami Zayn served as the special guest referee. It just seemed like a bit of a boring match to me, and WWE had already done it once at Clash in Italy.

Expectations aside, I was willing to give it a chance. While it definitely did surprise me, I can confidently say that it was absolutely not the good kind of surprise. I already thought it was weird enough for such a big match with a big title on the line to kick off the show instead of being the main event, but that turned out to be the least of my worries.

First off, we didn't need to have the spot in the middle of the initial match where Zayn went down, and a second referee ran out to temporarily replace him. It felt like it was drama for the sake of adding drama into this match, and I think it would've simplified things a little bit if Zayn had just been down the entire time to miss Rhodes pinning GUNTHER.

Second, I didn't love the ending of the initial match at all. It seemed pretty apparent that Zayn would be getting involved in the match somehow, but he had already been involved in the ongoings of the match enough and didn't need to make the fast count when Rhodes had rolled up GUNTHER. It put a damper on the match for me, and was an abrupt ending to something that I already was on the fence about enjoying.

Third, WWE completely lost me when we came back from the break and were in a split screen that saw Rhodes in the ring and GUNTHER in the back with Zayn, Nick Aldis, and some other officials. It was so incredibly hard to follow what was going on with so much happening at once, and WWE truly would've been better off with just one camera that caught the arguing backstage and Rhodes going back out to the ringside area.

Fourth, doing the match restart between Rhodes and GUNTHER ended up being a total moot point. Given that Zayn ended up interfering anyway to cause a no-contest ending, there was absolutely no need to restart the match, and it didn't really have any kind of reasoning behind it other than creating even more unnecessary drama in the storyline between Rhodes, GUNTHER, and Zayn.

Essentially, this all boils down to being a completely overbooked mess that was really hard to follow. It seems pretty clear that the endgame for this was always going to be a Triple Threat Undisputed WWE Championship match between Rhodes, Zayn, and GUNTHER, but there was a much simpler way to do this: just book the match instead of trying to do whatever it was they did.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

It's nice to see Jade Cargill rebounding from her rivalry with Rhea Ripley. WWE has a nasty habit of letting former world champions stew for a while, often away from TV, as they try to dream up another story that will put them in world title contention.

Instead, Jade Cargill jumped right into the Queen of the Ring tournament, and when that didn't work out, she called out the woman who aided in knocking her out of the tournament, Women's US Champion Tiffany Stratton. Stratton has accepted the challenge, putting Cargill right in the hunt for the Women's US Title. It's refreshing to see a former world champion treat the US Title like a worthy championship. Yes, it's personal between Jade and Tiffany, but Cargill clearly understands the value of the US Title as well. The whole thing makes even more sense than the booking of the Queen of the Ring tournament itself.

Cargill is having a tremendous year, and I worried that losing at WrestleMania might send her backsliding. Instead, she's as central to "SmackDown" as she's always been, proving herself as a talent who can be slotted in any division, and I'm so happy to be wrong.

Written by Ross Berman

It's obvious that I'm in the camp of those who aren't fans of Jey Uso as a singles star, but I guess I should have seen this coming when he was announced for the King of the Ring tournament with everything going on with the Bloodline. His match tonight to advance to the finals of the tournament next weekend at Night of Champions wasn't bad, but that's mostly because Je'Von Evans is fantastic, and I swear the kid could pull a pretty good match out of anyone, even at his young age.

It would have been nice to see him go on to face former "WWE NXT" rival Oba Femi, but that may be the soft spot in my heart for the developmental brand, talking. I'm not dumb enough to think that WWE would actually put two young, up-and-coming stars in such a big spot at the same time.

It was Uso to go over tonight over the beloved Evans, and I could have sworn I heard the groan from the IWC coming through my laptop screen. I don't like this at all, because I had really hoped the experiment of Uso as a singles star was over, especially following everything we saw on season two of "WWE Unreal." I don't mind him when it comes to the overall story of the Bloodline on "Raw," even with him being a little unhinged compared to his brother and Jacob Fatu, but his being in this position doesn't work for me. I guess it does in storyline, however, with Roman Reigns pushing him to take the Undisputed WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes. At this point, though, I personally rather just see him in a team with Jimmy and a henchman to Reigns.

I guess it seems obvious that "The Ruler" wins the tournament, but I am still not convinced that WWE won't back a dump truck of cash into Brock Lesnar's backyard to get him to fly to Riyadh to take Femi out by the end of his match with Uso. That would be the absolute worst possible outcome of this, Lesnar laying out Femi to further their story ahead of SummerSlam, and Uso becoming King of the Ring to challenge whoever holds the blue brand's title at the "Biggest Party of the Summer." While I wasn't a fan of how the main event went at all, either, I'm glad this wasn't the match to cap off the show tonight. "SmackDown" continues to be one big bummer, and Uso's victory didn't help that at all.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I won't lie: this was a really rough edition of "SmackDown" to get through overall. However, week after week, Danhausen seems to be the one beacon of light on WWE's tumultuous programming. Tonight was no exception to that.

Danhausen may not always be given a lot of television time, but he always makes the most of what he's given by doing something fun, quirky, and a little bit different from everything else on the show. In the instance of his backstage from tonight, he did share the spotlight with a handful of other stars, but it was still the one part of this show that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Kit Wilson and The Miz really added a lot to the chaos of this segment by pretending to be under the spell of Danhausen and saying their catchphrases over and over again. I really enjoyed seeing Angel and Berto get a little bit of extra television time in and do something fun by confronting Danhausen about costing them a lot of money for not cursing the New York Knicks. Matt Cardona somehow being shocked back into Zack Ryder was also a really fun touch to this, and Danhausen was just as fantastic as he always is.

This may have only been a minute or two of this show, but it didn't need to do much in order to stand out in the best way possible. The future is bright for Danhausen, and I cannot wait to see what he does next on WWE programming.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Once it was announced that Charlotte Flair was facing Liv Morgan in the Queen of the Ring semifinals, it was pretty clear that Jade Cargill would cost Flair a spot in the finals. It did happen, but a little earlier than expected. Instead of interfering in the match, she attacked Flair with B-Fab and Michin just minutes before the match. Of course, Flair refused to forfeit and competed anyway. Commentary kept putting her over as "courageous" because she decided to risk further damage to her knee. Morgan focused on the injured knee all match long, like any good heel would do. Morgan would eventually get Flair to advance to the finals.

The fact that Morgan is one win away from becoming the Queen of the Ring is absurd. She shouldn't even be in the tournament to begin with as current WWE Women's Champion. The winner is supposed to get a shot at her title at SummerSlam. Morgan explained that she was in the tournament to prove the doubters wrong. That makes zero sense when she is literally the champion. It's pathetic that WWE doesn't have anyone to challenge the champion, so they tried to disguise it by putting her in a tournament. What happens if she wins? Is there still no one to challenge her? Stephanie Vaquer is rumored to be having visa issues. If that isn't resolved in time, I hope they have a plan in place because this is unacceptable.

Written by Samantha Schipman

I knew back when Ricky Saints and Carmelo Hayes had their first match against one another back in mid-May, that if they were going to go to some kind of series, their matches against one another were only going to continue to get better. Tonight's match, where Saints defeated Hayes to earn the shot at Trick Williams' United States Championship at Night of Champions next weekend, proved that point. And, while I think Hayes made an excellent United States Champion, I'm glad Saints emerged victorious, because he'll make for a more interesting challenger against Williams.

We really needed some good in-ring action tonight after the way the show started. Not that Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and GUNTHER aren't great in the ring, but the shenanigans that opened the show just weren't it for me. Thankfully, this match occurred earlier in the night, in what felt like exactly the right spot for it, and it helped me actually enjoy a bit of the blue brand tonight.

The men really showed how well they knew each other after three matches before this. Going into "SmackDown," they were tied at one win a piece, but they had another match somewhere between May 15 and now that ended in a double countout. Sure, commentary kept harping on how they "know each other so well," but even if you had your TV muted to just watch the action, you'd see it. There were quite a few points where Hayes, especially, had Saints scouted. They traded counters to each other's big moves throughout the match, including Hayes avoiding the Revolution DDT and Saints countering the First 48. This was definitely my favorite match they've had.

In the end, it was the exposed turnbuckle that helped Saints get the victory. The way the pad fell off, however, when Hayes countered the Roshambo, was innocuous enough. Saints didn't seem to pull it right off, at least from what I noticed, but he did use it to his advantage, which I liked. The win wasn't exactly clean, but Saints is still a heel, and that was nothing compared to the shenanigans of the opening match (or matches, really) of the show.

Saints is such an interesting opponent for Williams, since Williams is supposed to be leaning more heel, but he's definitely a tweener when it comes to crowd reaction, if not full face at this point. It makes me wish this match was taking place in the States to hear how the crowd would react, but they'll still get a good reception in Saudi Arabia, and I'm excited to see it either way.

Written by Daisy Ruth