4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (23 May - Results & Review)

2. Doing This In Front Of Fans Was A Mistake

Look, there was nothing wrong with R-Truth’s promo delivery when talking about "childhood hero" John Cena and hyping up his match at SNME, but the live crowd were far too busy with “WHAT?!” chants to care about anything he was saying. Truth fought hard to get his point across, but this paled in comparison to the sit-down from last week on the 16 May SmackDown.

The bulk of Truth's speech was a little less serious than the interview with Wade Barrett too, which didn’t help. This might’ve been more effective backstage or pre-taped, being honest. Sending Truth out there for 5-10 minutes without anybody to bounce off of in 2025 was always going to be risky, and it just didn't work in execution. People sat on their hands or trolled the segment.

Some other fans on social media apps criticised Savannah for that, but they presumably thought somebody was about to gatecrash R-Truth's mic time anyway. It likely wouldn't be Cena, but surely someone was going to come out and tell the delusional babyface veteran to shut the hell up. Nope, he continued uninterrupted before doing some splits and calling it a night.

The contrast between last week's sit-down and this live interview proves how challenging working a live crowd is (even for a stalwart like Truth). With Wade, WWE could keep things moving and Truth had somebody to work with. Here, he was out on his own and had nothing much new to add to the Cena story before Saturday Night's Main Event.

Swing and a miss, unfortunately.