How would WWE follow up on the disastrous angle from last week’s Friday Night SmackDown where Pat McAfee took a big ol’ fat hairy steaming dump on the entire promotion? By having Jelly Roll be the voice of reason, of course!
I kid, but whatever pivot was rumored here started with General Manager Nick Aldis claiming the higher ups are pulling strings and Mr. Roll acting as the voice of the fans who spent the past week complaining. He hit all the points — it’s not about McAfee, or Jelly, or anyone or anything
else. No, it’s about Rhodes vs. Orton, 20 years of history, and the WWE championship.
I wasn’t buying it.
Later, McAfee showed up and Roll was right there to confront him about that RKO he ate last week. McAfee is now calling Jelly the outsider who isn’t a part of “our business” and shouldn’t be involved. They are indeed building to Roll vs. McAfee now, or at least a tag team match.
Finally, it was time for McAfee to hit the ring to say a few words and I simply cannot believe anyone anywhere would endorse this. He’s getting booed long and loud, sure, but is this really what we are doing?
McAfee, as if it isn’t bad enough how he went after Cody Rhodes last week, turned his attention to CM Punk this week. He called him a “spineless bum,” called out the fact that he’s not as famous, and then dug in on him by pointing out his hypocrisy regarding Saudi Arabia.
“He’s a fraud. Like a politician — all talk, no action.”
Then he outright said Punk rolls over “like the little bitch” that he is when it comes time to make real change. McAfee actually is what Punk claims, he says, and the ticket prices being too high is indeed a problem because why would anyone want to spend their money to watch WrestleMania when Punk is one of the main events?
They actually doubled down!
How does it make any sense at all to have a legitimately hugely popular sports personality come in and shit all over the place, claim the product sucks, and then bury the top two champions being counted on to sell the biggest show of the year? When McAfee took credit for getting a 25-percent off sale to WrestleMania, no one seemed to realize how stupid it would be to have him try to sell that as a good thing after everything else he’s mentioned.
He even told people not to spend money on the Sunday show, just the Saturday one. You know, promoted by the same company he can’t stop telling us absolutely sucks with champions who are terrible and killing the business. This doesn’t sell anything. It just devalues every possible outcome, including the one McAfee claims he’s pushing so hard for.
This really might be the most moronic story we’ve ever seen going into a WrestleMania.
Rhodes finally showed up to square up with McAfee, microphone in hand. He told Pat to grab a replica title, get the Superstar experience, and then go say “thanks daddy” to whoever sent him here.
Cody then took up for the fans, pushing back against calling them marks and instead referring to them as “family.” He tried to take the legs out from under McAfee by saying the fans do want to see Orton but they don’t want to see McAfee.
“Go home, Pat.”
The response? Cody is fake. Everything about him is manufactured, even his teeth. But he also reiterated that if Orton loses at WrestleMania, he’s gone from the business and we’ll never see or hear from him in this industry again.
McAfee tried to bait Rhodes by bringing up how deep in Triple H’s cheeks he is, but Orton stopped him by showing up on the Jumbotron with Jelly Roll laid out getting dragged around. It was all a set up, to give Orton another advantage and while they gave the champ a hope spot, once again the heels stood tall.
Again, I just do not understand anything about how they’ve booked all of this. For weeks now, the champions look like shit, just getting taken advantage of and laid out left and right while the heels get to look cool while talking about how stupid the fans are.
Boy, I sure feel it watching nonsense like this.
All the rest
- Jade Cargill used hurting Iyo Sky to hurt Rhea Ripley, so Sky showed up to SmackDown to stand up for herself in what was booked to be the main event of the evening. They didn’t get a ton of time but Sky bumped like hell for Cargill and put her over clean. When Jade tried to finish Iyo off for good, that’s when Ripley ran in. They went off the air to Jade backing off. A weak finish to the show.
- Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley felt like a far more important match than it was because they were in San Jose and Bayley is still royalty there. It was a good match too, one that makes you remember these are some of the best of the best in the women’s division. Flair helped Bliss roll Bayley up for the pin, and the dreaded MOMENTUM is now on Alexa & Charlotte’s side.
- Matt Cardona took up for the fans by saying he’s sick of the guests coming in running their mouths, shutting down Lil Yachty, who volunteered Trick Williams to beat him up later in the show. So they made that match and it went far longer than it probably needed to but they got the big spot in there — Sami Zayn hitting Lil Yachty with a Helluva Kick on the outside. Is it time to start calling Cardona Zack Ryder again? He’s doing about as well in this run as he did when he went by that name and had no respect.
- Drew McIntyre is now hammering on the point that Jacob Fatu went to jail once. WWE really wants his life to be an inspirational story. I don’t know that it’s going to work, but I can’t fault them for trying. They went back to the well with Fatu and Solo Sikoa, setting up Fatu beating up Tama Tonga later in the evening. He looked good in the process, and then McIntyre showed up shirtless in jeans, real asskicker gear, Street Fight, UNSANCTIONED ready gear, and they did a prolonged beatdown.
- Royce Keys still exists, you guys! He finally got some time on television, getting to throw around Berto in what they called his “home area.” Keys used the spinebuster to put Berto down for the three count and the live crowd reacted favorably to him. Might WWE have something here? He cut a true blue babyface promo in an interview after before Sikoa was the guy who showed up to say “I run things around here, so if you need anything, my door is always open.” I don’t know where this could possibly be going, but Solo has lost so much heat it felt like a really dumb and bad joke to hear him say that out loud to literally anyone.
- Sami Zayn’s new angle is to wonder what exactly he did to be booed by the fans but now he understands that it’s totally okay because his true ride-or-die fans are, in fact, ride-or-die he no longer feels anxiety. The mopey guy of the past few months is gone now because of them, and he’s a new man because of it. What made it funny was Trick Willy showing up and immediately making Zayn look second rate. I couldn’t be any more on board the Trick Williams train, and Sami is going to be the perfect guy to launch him even further into the stratosphere.
- They actually did a Danhausen match on this show! He was paired with Kit Wilson, who is now running around with The Miz. I kinda love/kinda hate that because he’s so talented he doesn’t need it but he’ll almost certainly benefit from it. Meanwhile, Danhausen used the Cursed Kick to win the match, and the whole thing was far more entertaining than it ever should have been.
I’m so turned off by the main angle on the blue brand these days, it’s hard to even gauge how entertaining the shows actually are.
Grade: D+
Your turn.
