A show that probably should have been the climax of WWE's Premiere Week considering the state of Sunday's WWE Hell In A Cell, the first edition of SmackDown on Fox was a beautiful and brilliant festival of WWE's best bullsh*t.
The set was stunning, the booking was shocking and The Rock was talking - it was all the best ingredients for a superb two-hour shift of Sports Entertainment. The company were even smart enough to tee up a gimmick for the second episode too, if only to prove that the near-four million viewing figure wasn't a total fluke.
It's Draft season!
A staple event for WWE any time the rosters are split, Drafts, Superstar Shake-ups et al have always found drama in the fundamentally undramatic. Never once have we the audience been given a storyline reason as to why red is better than blue or Monday better than Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, but that very question would unpick too many loose threads. Instead, let's make like the "war rooms" and celebrate/commiserate as appropriate!
In the immediate aftermath of the broadcast, it felt as though the latter dominated the discussion.
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.
