New creative direction reportedly for Smackdown, JBL tells a McMahon/Cole story
– Dr. Chris Featherstone has reported via X that WWE will use the 3-hour format to help showcase talent that have been underutilized:
I was informed that internally, a major focus will be to showcase more underutilized talent on the program. As I previously reported, Blair Davenport has been a name discussed for more television time and will “be off and running” with the new format.
– While speaking on the “Something To Wrestle With” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer John Layfield (JBL) commented on words that Vince McMahon didn’t want WWE announcers to use…
“Vince didn’t like a lot of things like ‘very.’ You’re very happy. ‘Learn English. Say ecstatic.’ Vince didn’t like ‘that.’ He thought it sounded redneck-ish or stupid. He wanted better words. He wanted a more sophisticated commentary than that. He hated the word ‘that. That arm.’ That is no no. ‘The arm’ or ‘right arm.’ Vince hated the term ‘that’ and ‘the.’”
“We were coming off air and we did the old Von Erich cage door finish where he slams the door on the guy’s head. Something like that. Michael (Cole) had the best notes and he would read those notes. He was so good and so professional. Michael is going over the finish, promoting Raw or something coming up. Michael is about seven seconds from being off air. He said, ‘Everything was going fine until he hit him with that door.’ You hear this baritone billionaire freaking erupt. I mean, erupt. We’re seven seconds from going off air. Vince had this wonderful pay-per-view and he’s so happy until Michael says ‘that door.’ Vince goes, ‘Michael, did you go to Syracuse, you illiterate son of a bitch. It’s f*-king the door! Not that door!’ Michael is trying to go off air and Vince is yelling at him about ‘that door’ and ‘the door.’ It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Michael read the whole thing like Vince wasn’t even there. It was tremendous.”
(quotes: Jeremy Lambert)
Regarding the Vince part, the guy is a bloody lunatic.
As for the creative for SD, I sure hope so. Haven’t seen Davenport in months and hopefully they find time to make the audience care about her, Legado, Crews, Andrade (great matches will only get you so far), Pretty Deadly, Giovanni Vinci (that gimmick change was for nothing), Gallows, Anderson and however many others are rarely used or not cared about by the audience. It took them about 2 years to finally do something meaningful with Michin and Candice LeRae. Same thing for those on Raw.
I also hope this is accurate, but if what we’ve seen of a 3-hour Raw for however many years is any indication I’m not getting my hopes up. Unless they have a plan in place and are just waiting to implement it, I’m worried it’s just going to devolve into more Bloodline time like it did tonight.
@What? – That’s what I thought would happen too. Shame. I like the Bloodline stuff but they gotta build up some other folks and get the fans interested in them too. Why not stick Gallows and Anderson with Finn Balor in the Judgment Day? Looks like Finn’s gonna break that group up anyways so might as well do something with G&A in the mean time.
I like that idea, because they weren’t making anything happen for themselves or others in NXT. We’re definitely on a countdown to the implosion of Judgment Day, but I’m kind of split on the whole faction concept. Factions and throwing singles wrestlers into tag team matches are essentially just ways of featuring more people in the same amount of TV time. Done right, it can keep things interesting and open up new avenues for storytelling. Done wrong…well, it just looks like you’re throwing people together to get more people on TV, especially the singles-as-tag-teams. It weakens the tag team division by drawing focus away from actual, established tag teams, and faction-wise Russo wasn’t entirely wrong when he said the Bloodline is at or near that repetitive, overplayed point the nWo eventually got to.
Well said and I agree. Just seen SD and they really didn’t use the extra time wisely. The main event match and especially the entrances were dragging on for ages.
Don’t see where else the Bloodline stuff goes after the Tribal Combat match unless maybe The Rock helps Solo win thus setting up Rock v Roman. As for the others, I think it’s safe to say Jacob Fatu will be a big star, he’s so entertaining. Would have been good for Jey to have a longer singles title reign, maybe again in the future? Jimmy and Sami, Tag Champs? I feel like Kevin Owens teased it a couple of weeks ago but we might be getting him v Sami again some time.
A lot of it will depend on how this “transfer window” business shakes out. They haven’t immediately glued Jey back to Jimmy’s side, so there’s hope for another singles run there. I’ve thought the Bloodline had run its course a few times before so nothing would surprise me, but The Rock getting involved makes as much sense as anything I’ve thought of. Fatu will be just fine, yes, but I feel like Tama Tonga needs Tonga Loa back for anything to happen with them that isn’t directly Bloodline-related. Between KO, Drew, Sami, Punk, Seth, Cody, etc., there are plenty of possibilities for all kinds of Bloodline-adjacent drama. It’s even impacted the US title picture with LA Knight, so like the nWo at its peak, even when it isn’t about the Bloodline it’s about the Bloodline.