WWE Friday Night Smackdown Thread: The Fat vs. The Furious Edition

You have probably seen by now that April 15th, for the 2nd year in a row, brought about a round of WWE roster cuts... this time freeing up Samoa Joe, both of the IIconics, Bo Dallas, Mickie James, Chelsea Green, Kalisto, Tucker Knight, Wesley Blake, & Mojo Rawley from their WWE contracts

Among the names of releases people were thinking would come was Aleister Black... but apparently that will not be the case as it's reported that several vignettes have been filmed for Black's return to TV... which could come at any time.

It looks like Corey Graves got drafted over to Raw exclusively as as former Indianapolis Colts punter and wrestling celebrity extraordinaire Pat McAfee will now fill Graves' chair next to Michael Cole starting tonight on Smackdown... and honestly... I'm here for it... McAfee is entertaining AF

Ending the Wednesday Night Wrestling Wars appears to be a great thing for both NXT & AEW. NXT averaged > 800,000 viewers and nearly doubled its 18-49 demo... while Dynamite did its 2nd biggest rating in its history (only behind its debut episode) by hitting 1.2M viewers

Mauro Ranallo is back in wrestling as he has been brought in to call the Title vs. Title main event match at IMPACT's Rebellion PPV on April 25th, IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann vs. AEW World Champion Kenny Omega. Bringing in Ranallo will certainly help give a big fight feel to the Swann/Omega match.

Tonight's Smackdown comes from the WWE Thunderdome inside the Yeungling Center on the campus of the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.

After successfully defending their titles in a triple threat last week... Roo-Dolph the Red Nosed Tag Team Champions must defend their belts again... this time in a straight up match against the Street Profits

Rey Mysterio will be the underdog (what's new) when he faces off against an angry Otis Dozovic... who will certainly fighting for his fallen front loader... Tucker Knight (get the Heavy Machinery reference??)

Speaking of Heavy Machinery... what happened to this storyline?