7 Ups & 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (11 Oct)
3. Sh*ts & Cain
WWE.com
Cain Velasquez isn't brand spanking new to wrestling, having ran the ropes in Triple A as well as WWE's Performance Center before being trotted out on television for his blockbuster debut against Brock Lesnar.
By all accounts and scant clips, his grasp of the in-ring basics is reasonable. His grasp on a microphone simply shouldn't exist.
Best kept as the silence behind the violence, Cain was horrific in the Crown Jewel press conference earlier that day, and couldn't follow Paul Heyman's magnificent promo even with Rey Mysterio working as his ventriloquist.
It takes time and tenure to learn to be a great talker in WWE, but the company have rushed him to this stage so everybody gets paid the big bucks from a pile marked "blood money" backstage. They'll subsequently be judged in kind.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 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 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, 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. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett
