Pat McAfee's Steady Rise, Lacey Evans' Botched return, More Friday WWE and AEW Takes

While we may have seen some decent action at times on this week's episodes of SmackDown and Rampage, these shows also highlighted some issues both companies are facing at the moment.

In AEW, the women's division has suffered from a lack of time. We saw another short women's bout this week, with Kris Statlander and Athena picking up a win.

The referees in AEW have also been the subject of criticism for a long time, and we saw another issue in the main event with The Lucha Bros and Private Party.

Over on SmackDown, Lacey Evans continued to alienate the WWE Universe, while Pat McAfee again proved why he is one of the MVPs of WWE these days.

AEW Needs to Improve Time Management

AEW has been criticized in recent months for how it has booked its women's division, and that is not going to stop after what we saw on Rampage.

Statlander and Athena battled The Renegade Twins in a tag team match, but it can barely be considered a tag bout. It lasted about 30 seconds and didn't feature any actual tags between partners.

A pre-match brawl allowed Athena to hit her finisher to get the victory almost immediately. It is one of many recent examples of women having the shortest matches and segments on the weekly shows.

Not only does AEW need to figure out how to allocate more time to the division, but it needs to get better at time management in general. .

AEW has been around for three years now. It may not have had the decades to develop into a well-oiled machine like WWE has, but this stuff should be handled better by now.

AEW Referees Have Some Issues to Work On

Being a referee is a difficult and oftentimes thankless job. They have to keep the flow of the match going by communicating different things to the talent, they need to make sure everyone is safe, and they have to be in the right place at all times.

If you notice a referee too much or not enough, it means they are doing something wrong. Unfortunately, there have been a few too many examples of this in AEW lately.

During the main event of Friday's Rampage, Rush made an appearance and ended up knocking right into referee Bryce Remsburg. This would have forced any normal human to turn around to see who hit them, but Remsburg kept yelling at Andrade because he knew Rush needed to interfere without him seeing it.

To the official's credit, he did keep his eyes focused in the right direction, and it was the wrestlers who initially caused the problem, but sometimes you need to throw the plan out the window in order to keep logic alive.

AEW officials have been one of the most criticized aspects of the company since its inception, but it's not nearly as big of a problem as it used to be. These minor mistakes and timing issues may never be impossible to avoid completely, but there has to be a way to mitigate them.

Pat McAfee Is One of WWE's Best Assets

SmackDown didn't open with a match or a Bloodline promo like usual. Instead, Michael Cole brought out McAfee for a quick speech about his feud with Happy Corbin.

Not only was it clear that the crowd loves the former NFL punter, but it is very apparent that McAfee has become one of WWE's best assets.

He is great on commentary, he is a fantastic athlete who can have a fun match, he can give a solid promo to build a feud and he knows exactly what to say to get the fans to cheer.

It's kind of wild to think that one of WWE's commentators is more over with the WWE Universe than a lot of people on the roster, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.

McAfee and Corbin are a good combination because the crowd always gives them the desired response, so their SummerSlam showdown should be interesting to say the least.

With Corbin being known as a safe worker, he is going to be able to take care of McAfee if he slips up. This might end up being one of the highlights of SummerSlam.

WWE Has Officially Botched the Lacey Evans Return

Evans began hyping her initial return from maternity leave a few months ago with a series of videos that were clearly designed to elicit sympathy from the crowd, and it actually worked for a few weeks.

Fans talked about how inspirational she was on social media after hearing about her difficult upbringing, but WWE went too far with it.

Nobody is denying that Evans is an impressive person. She came from nothing, served her country in the Marines and made it to the main roster of WWE. She has done a lot and deserves respect, but fans struggled to get on board with her as a babyface.

WWE realized this and has tried to remedy the situation with a heel turn in recent weeks, but that has gone down like a lead balloon.

It's not as if Evans can never succeed. She can probably turn into a solid heel with enough work, but her return has to be considered a flop at this point. Let's hope the rest of 2022 is kinder to her than the first half has been.