WWE SmackDown: Burning Questions to Address After July 11 Show

On Tuesday's WWE SmackDown, the Battleground puzzle began to come together.

Commissioner Shane McMahon announced how Naomi's next opponent will be decided. Mike Kanellis made an enemy of Sami Zayn. And Breezango's investigation continued, bringing the fashion-minded tag team closer to a showdown with their mystery rivals. 

With the July 23 Battleground pay-per-view on the horizon, the latest SmackDown advanced a number of storylines. There are still a number of unknowns lingering ahead of the event.

Who will claim the No. 1 contender's spot for the SmackDown Women's Championship? What can we expect from Kanellis moving forward? And just who is toying with Tyler Breeze and Fandango?

Read on for a full breakdown of those questions along with whether AJ Styles will actually bring back a tradition John Cena began. 

Who Will Emerge as No. 1 Contender?

Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Lana, Tamina and Natalya are all in line to potentially get the next crack at the SmackDown Women's Championship.

McMahon booked a Fatal 5-Way elimination match between those Superstars at Battleground. The victor will then clash with Naomi at SummerSlam.

Who will WWE tag as the next contender? Will the company throw a curveball and anoint Tamina? Will Flair win en route to a heel turn?

Lana has already had three title shots. Naomi put her away in seconds in the last two. Returning to that route makes zero sense.

Seeing the veteran Natalya step back into the title picture could be interesting. But Flair and Lynch would give Naomi the better feud and match. Recent history suggests that WWE may instead choose to construct a multi-wrestler match, meaning Battleground ends in a tie of some sort.

What's Next for Mike Kanellis?

Zayn ran into Mike and Maria Kanellis backstage. He had to quickly regret it. Mike clubbed him.

We have seen very little of this power couple since their arrival at Money in the Bank. Zayn even made light of that, asking Mike if he even competed here.

The Kanellis characters aren't clear yet. How Mike will look in a WWE ring is unknown at this point, too. But answers are coming soon.

Alasdair Wilkins of the A.V. Club wrote: "I feel like we'll have a better sense of what to do with this, and the Kanellises in general, once we see Mike and Maria in action."

And that appears to be set to happen against Zayn. Nothing has been made official, but Mike debuting at Battleground against The Underdog from the Underground is the safe bet. 

Who Are Breezango's Mystery Rivals?

Breezango looked to wrangle and interrogate The Hype Bros on Tuesday's SmackDown. Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder, though, made it clear that they weren't responsible for trashing Breeze and Fandango's office. And during that interaction, someone stole Fandango's toy horse.

The Fashion Police noted that they are running out of suspects in that case.

That's absolutely true. The Ascension and The Colons have been eliminated. American Alpha isn't even a thing right now. Is there a tag team from NXT heading to the blue brand? Is this what WWE has cooked up for Erick Rowan?

The pace of these segments suggests it will take a good while until we know the truth. The slow journey to the reveal has been quite the fun ride, though.

There haven't been enough clues of late to get a handle on this mystery. Perhaps WWE isn't even sure how it wants to end this story and will have to make something up on the fly. It won't be the first time.

Is the U.S. Open Challenge Really Back?

Styles opened Tuesday's show by issuing an open challenge for his newly won U.S. title.

Cena answered the call. The move was a bit poetic as Cena made the open challenge such a big part of his own U.S. title reign.

It's too early to start dreaming up matches for Styles. As we saw with Kevin Owens, a champ may bring back the concept but not consistently. 

PWTorch columnist Greg Parks reminded us of KO's partial return of the open challenge:

Are we getting a full-fledged, week-to-week open challenge this time around? That would be a great move. The more Styles matches SmackDown features, the better. And the surprise element of these bouts add a good amount of fun.

Styles and the U.S. title should be centerpieces for the brand.