The John Report: WWE SmackDown 07/10/26 Review

This is WWE SmackDown, featuring CM Punk celebrating as the new WWE Champion, Trick Williams facing Carmelo Hayes, and more.

It’s the first live two-hour edition of SmackDown this year since last week’s show was taped. This past Monday on Raw, CM Punk returned after nearly three months off and beat Sami Zayn to win the Undisputed WWE Championship in Punk’s hometown of Chicago. Zayn was supposed to face Cody Rhodes, but Gunther attacked Rhodes backstage, and Punk was the surprise replacement. Poor Zayn only held the WWE Title for 9 days. Punk is now an 8-time WWE World Champion, and he’s going to be a SmackDown guy for the foreseeable future. I was sad about Zayn losing the title, but I was also not surprised at all. There have been 4 WWE Title changes so far this year. I don’t know if Punk is going to lose it before the end of the year.

On a personal note, I will not be reviewing the July 17th SmackDown or July 18th Saturday Night’s Main Event shows live due to a family wedding on the 18th. A very important family member is getting married, so I need to be with my family, including the night before the wedding. I’ll have recaps of both shows probably on July 19th or maybe even the 20th. It depends on how I’m feeling. For what it’s worth, I haven’t had a week off since May 2025, and I don’t miss a lot of shows, but sometimes I need to focus on things other than wrestling. That’s life.

From the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, this is SmackDown for episode #1403. Follow me on Twitter/X @johnreport. Let’s get to it.

I’ll be back after 8 p.m. ET  with the live review.