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          Ziggler and Ambrose set the tone on SmackDown Live

          Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler will face off for the WWE world heavyweight championship at SummerSlam @WWE

          The past few years of weekly WWE content have often fallen victim to drawn-out talking segments to open either Raw or SmackDown.

          Complaints regularly center on conversations that carry on -- drag on, really -- for more than 20 minutes, just to get to one line or a catchphrase at the very end.

          With five-plus hours of content to fill on a weekly basis, sometimes things need to be stretched out -- getting creative with the assets available. It's all led to a lot of unrest from the WWE universe and a tendency to cut into every empty space in dialogue with the dreaded "what" chants popularized by Stone Cold Steve Austin -- chants that have subsequently been overused by lazy crowds with short attention spans that tend to send segments even further off the rails.

          While there were hints of that kind of behavior at brief moments during the semi-opening segment of SmackDown Live on Tuesday (the actual opening of the show was an almost Saturday Night Live-inspired skit involving Heath Slater, but more on that later), there was no mistaking that something different was in the air as Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler entered "Miz TV."

          After a brief introduction from Maryse, The Miz took over the mic and got in about 10 words in before Ambrose's music abruptly cut him off -- something Ambrose has made a habit of doing any time he appears on The Miz's interview segment. This time around, Ziggler was around to return the favor, quickly cutting Ambrose off as he too made his way to the ring.

          What followed over the next 12 minutes was a master class in building up hype for the WWE championship match at one of the biggest WWE shows of the year.

          There was a casual back-and-forth to begin with, as The Miz made the kind of valuable contributions he's all but perfected over the past decade in the WWE. In a confrontation between two good guys -- albeit good guys with an edge or an angle to them -- Miz stirred the pot just enough at the beginning to get things cooking and then stepped back to enjoy the show in the corner with Maryse.

          "There he is," Ambrose said, responding to a fairly standard boast from Ziggler. "That's that new Dolph Ziggler, that laser-focused Dolph Ziggler -- so much fire, so much intensity, so much aggression. You know, Miz, a lot of people are saying that Dolph has turned some kind of corner, but this new Dolph -- I don't buy it."

          The seeds had been sown well over the past few weeks, with both Ziggler and Ambrose getting in both verbal and actual jabs on the way to SummerSlam.

          The tension continued to grow from there.

          "What do you want from me, Dean?" Ziggler asked. "You want me to admit that I used that the company never got behind me as fuel every single day ... that day after day, night after night, year after year, I use all the critics and the naysayers as fuel to make myself better?"

          Ambrose hit his groove and set the stage for a memorable finale to the segment.

          "The day you win the WWE world championship is the day the pressure really gets turned up, and Dolph, we both know you don't like pressure -- you never have," Ambrose said. "You can't handle pressure.

          "Take a look at this. Take a look at how big this chip on your shoulder has gotten. Let me tell you something -- this chip on your shoulder? It's going to weigh you down. It's going to bury you, because you have never felt pressure like you're going to feel at SummerSlam when you're in the ring with me and trying to take my championship away.

          "You're going to prove something, all right? ... You're going to prove that you don't want it bad enough. You've never wanted it bad enough, and you're never going to get it."

          Ambrose held up the title as the two got closer. Ziggler paused for what most expect will be his heart-felt reply: his last comments on the matter before the pair meets for the WWE championship at SummerSlam. Then came this:

          With Ambrose hanging onto every last word like the rest of the crowd, he doesn't notice that Ziggler's taken a half-step back in the midst of his screams and gesticulations -- and in the time it takes Ambrose to blink, Ziggler snaps off a vicious superkick to lay Ambrose out.

          He's suddenly calm, and a great segment has been completed with Miz and Maryse stunned and smiling in the background.

          Hits and misses

          • It would be a tall task for anyone to follow that promo, but the 12-man tag match and everyone in it knew what they were doing. It was a fun-at-times spot fest, including a run of about eight straight finishers, and it should come as little surprise that American Alpha got the victory (after one of the slickest "grand-amplitude" throws Jason Jordan and Chad Gable have ever rattled off, I might add) and most of the attention, with the Usos second-best. It seems like a pretty clear path to these two teams squaring off whenever the SmackDown Live tag titles become a reality.

          • They keep trying new things with the SmackDown women's division, and Naomi debuted a new EDM gimmick. Perhaps building off of the popularity of something that worked -- her crazy color-changing light-up shoes -- Naomi was now going all-out, with black-light-sensitive clothes and hair, all glowing green in the darkness as she tossed out glow-in-the-dark bracelets and necklaces. All of this was a precursor for another chapter of the "Eva Marie can't wrestle tonight" show. After a full intro from her announcer, he trailed off and quietly said, "All-red everything -- Eva Marie! ... has been delayed due to traffic." That's another week of this and another job well done. A women's tag match later in the show brought out both Eva Marie and Naomi, setting up a six-woman tag match for SummerSlam (Carmella, Naomi and Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss, Natalya and Eva Marie). There are bright things ahead for most of these women, but for now, a spot on a card that stretches through two hours of preshow and four hours on pay-per-view will have to suffice.

          • The saga of Heath Slater continues. One night after getting mercilessly beat down by Brock Lesnar, Slater got a taste of the other side of one of the SummerSlam main events in Randy Orton. The skit that opened SmackDown, which involved Slater stealing a bereavement basket of fruit and attempting to pass it off as a peace offering to Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon, was more of Slater spinning nothing into something. His win by disqualification and subsequent backstage segment in which he blew it again with a contract in hand is a testament to the great work he's doing. Here's hoping he's a free agent for some time to come.

          • Speaking of Orton, he has looked like an absolute star in the lead-up to his match with Lesnar. The channeling of Lesnar and the suplexes on Slater were a nice touch -- and I've been made to feel as though Orton has a chance Sunday. Does he, though?

          • Ambrose vs. Erick Rowan was a filler match -- fine for what it was as it was going on. Even though his time was limited in this episode, Bray Wyatt stole the spotlight and served as a reminder that he could play a very big role in how things play out on Sunday. Poor Rowan. He hasn't had a major match where things have turned out his way in ages, since the peak of the Wyatt Family and maybe earlier than that. He even lost a blink-and-you'll-miss-it match to The Rock at Wrestlemania. The WWE misses Luke Harper, but Rowan misses him most of all. With Wyatt seemingly leaving Rowan behind, Harper might be his only salvation. On a side note, Ambrose is going to separate his shoulder doing that rebound clothesline one of these days.

          • There were a few bright spots for Alberto Del Rio in this match against John Cena, but the flashbacks of just how hot he was coming out of the box, compared to where he is now, was a bit of a bummer as SmackDown wound towards a close. It was disappointing for A.J. Styles not to be in action again this week on SmackDown live, but he got his shot in against Cena before all was said and done. Cena getting the last laugh sets the stage for some very interesting possibilities heading into SummerSlam, and brings up an interesting topic to ponder over in the next few days: How are the Raw and SmackDown Live superstars going to interact in what, for most, is their first opportunity to be in the same building since the draft?