Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Smackdown, Thunderdome, wrestling, wwe
WWE Thunderdome Era to Launch with Return of Attitude Era Star
WWE Smackdown tonight marks the beginning of the ThunderDome Era of WWE, an era which, if early previews are any indication, will be a nightmarish horror of LED boards, lasers, and disembodied heads. To usher fans into this new era, WWE is bringing out one of its biggest attitude-era stars to introduce the new set: Vince McMahon.
The Genetic Jackhammer will kick off Smackdown, according to an announcement from WWE. "BREAKING: @VinceMcMahon
will kick off Friday Night #SmackDown LIVE TONIGHT from the #WWEThunderDome at 8/7c on @FOXTV!" the company tweeted from its official Twitter account.
It's unknown what exactly McMahon will say. Perhaps some version of the last speech he gave to the WWE Universe when he appointed them the new "authority" and blamed all of WWE's ills on Raw Constable Baron Corbin. Corbin is a Smackdown star now, where he is known as the Ratings King of Friday Nights, or so my colleague Chad tells me, so it seems unlikely that he will be blamed once again, even though it's technically possible.
Another possibility is that McMahon gets attacked by Retribution, the new stable of non-political Antifa activists who have been terrorizing Raw and Smackdown for the past two weeks. While that would make sense for the stable and would help to get them over, it would also muddy the waters for a speech meant to kick off WWE's new era of shows that will last for at least the next few months.
Let's face it, the clip of Vince McMahon shouting "Welcome to Thunderrrrrdome!" is going to be re-used a lot in video packages for the foreseeable future, so WWE won't want to mess it up by having protestors throw a brick at McMahon's head. However, Retribution attacking Vince McMahon later in the night backstage wouldn't be entirely out of the question and could allow WWE to have its cake and eat it too.