Add as a preferred source on Google The King & Queen of the Ring semifinals have become another point of criticism over WWE’s current balance between RAW and SmackDown.
With the brackets now set, Oba Femi will face Dominik Mysterio, while Je’Von Evans will take on Jey Uso in the men’s tournament. On the women’s side, IYO SKY will face Raquel Rodriguez, while Liv Morgan will meet Charlotte Flair.
The issue, however, is how those names are distributed. The vast majority of the semifinalists have direct ties to Monday Night RAW, leaving SmackDown with almost no real representation in the decisive stages of the tournaments.
On social media, many fans pointed out that six names belong to RAW, while only one directly represents SmackDown and another appears as a Free Agent in some tallies. Even with small variations depending on how each wrestler is classified, the overall read remains the same: the red brand looks much stronger.
🔴 6 semifinalists from RAW.
— DirtyDomDom (@DirtyDomDom) June 14, 2026
🔵 1 semifinalist from SmackDown.
⚫️ 1 Free Agent.
The King & Queen of the Ring brackets have exposed the gap between the two brands. ☠️
If the purpose of the Draft is to create two equally strong brands, then Triple H has failed to make SmackDown… pic.twitter.com/hpho9jERtF
That becomes even more noticeable because SmackDown has major names such as Cody Rhodes, Gunther, Rhea Ripley, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Sami Zayn, Jade Cargill, and Tiffany Stratton. Still, when it comes time to build tournaments with direct SummerSlam implications, RAW is taking up nearly all the space.
The winners of the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments will earn title opportunities at SummerSlam. In other words, WWE is not just filling weekly television. It is creating direct paths to one of the biggest events of the year.
That has only strengthened the criticism of Triple H. If the Draft was meant to create two equally relevant brands, the current brackets have given the opposite impression.
The question now is whether WWE will treat this as nothing more than a booking coincidence, or whether SmackDown will get a stronger creative response in the coming weeks.