4 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Oct 31)
3. The Good New Days
WWE
Making sure to dominate social media shares as they so wisely often do, The New Day again made the most of the season to draw nostalgic pops from crowd members of a certain age with their detailed renderings of Jimmy Hart, Akeem and Brother Love.
Big E entering the ring to 'Jive Soul Bro' would have perhaps caused Twitter to explode, but all three still maximised their minutes in the throw-back roles, particularly during a riotous backstage segment with Rusev and Aiden English.
It's been well documented how quickly The New Day fall out of favour when not fighting for titles. The trio were brightly coloured spare parts on Monday Night Raw for much of 2017 before their April switch, and now face employing these big gestures to avoid slip-sliding into irrelevancy on the blue brand.
It's to their credit also that they managed to front-and-centre themselves during the '#UnderSiege' segment on Monday's Raw. Becoming increasingly apparent how little they'll have to do on the night itself, it's helpful that they at least managed to feature in the big angle that kicked it off, even if they'll be nowhere near its ultimate conclusion.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
