In the theater of professional wrestling, Friday night's SmackDown offered a reminder that ambition and rivalry rarely resolve cleanly — they accumulate. Two women earned their places in a ladder match through perseverance and outside interference alike, while the evening's central confrontation between Cody Rhodes and Gunther dissolved into a four-man storm that answered nothing and promised everything. The road to SummerSlam grows more tangled with each passing week, as alliances shift and grievances multiply faster than they can be settled.