Vince McMahon Re-Wrote Last Night's WWE SmackDown
Awesome impromptu action was chairman's making.
Last night's SmackDown could so very easily have been an unmitigated disaster. With the vast majority of the brand's talent stranded in Saudi Arabia, it was up to WWE to hastily knock together whatever they could muster at the last minute, and in such strained circumstances, nobody would have blamed them had they entirely phoned it in.
And did they? Did they nowt. Leaning on their leaner list of superstars - admittedly, slashed from about a 1000 to a mere 900 - SmackDown posted unquestionably its finest show of the FOX era, telling a chronologically thematic tale of NXT invading in advance of Survivor Series.
With most of the A-Team trapped in Riyadh, this unusually outstanding episode must have been the responsibility of someone besides the usual suspects, then? Perhaps Triple H, who had a heavy presence on the broadcast as the dad of his NXT crew?
Nope. In advance of the show, Dave Meltzer was asked who would be handling SmackDown's last minute re-write, to which he very clearly stated "Vince". Credit where it's due: in spite of the absolute chaos coming back from Saudi Arabia, the chairman used his time in the air to stave off this trick of fate and put together a sumptuous Friday night treat, one day removed from Halloween.
We don't get many opportunities to praise Vince McMahon these days, so let's luxuriate in this one.