6 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (25 Oct)
2. 205 Dead
WWE.com
NXT's recent liberation of the Cruiserweight Championship brought into sharp focus something of an inconvenient truth - the main roster curse over the 205-and-under division had still been strong all this time.
An effort to rebuild the league dating all the way back to Ali and Cedric Alexander's WrestleMania 34 match last year had seen a host of excellent matches gain plaudits and engagement online, with Alexander, Buddy Murphy, Tony Nese and Drew Gulak all enhancing the purple prize despite generally being confined to life on the Kickoff Show.
With the black-and-gold brand in possession of the one thing keeping all the lightweights focused, the main roster appears to be where the remaining wrestlers themselves will be left to rot. Drew Gulak getting bantered off by Lucha House Party sucked. Drew Gulak getting bantered off for the second week in a row by bored bully Braun Strowman sucked. Vince McMahon presumably salivating over bringing back the powerpoint geek after he'd spent a year reinventing himself sucks.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but 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 in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast.
He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and 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. 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 sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.
