The Smackers Thread

[Callum1993]

If anything I think it suggests Cody is turning on Sunday. Much easier to do that now John is back as a fully fledged Face. Would have been somewhat murky waters if Cena went into it as a heel. Whether that’s a heel turn by just destroying Cena with no mercy or whether it involves The Rock/Travis Scott remains to be seen. 

[air_raid]

Just now, Callum1993 said:

If anything I think it suggests Cody is turning on Sunday. Much easier to do that now John is back as a fully fledged Face. Would have been somewhat murky waters if Cena went into it as a heel. Whether that’s a heel turn by just destroying Cena with no mercy or whether it involves The Rock/Travis Scott remains to be seen. 

I think there’s still plenty in the tank for Cody as a hero, the main event scene for little kids’ favourites looks pretty bare if you turn Cody now with Cena getting his Spitfire within the next five months. Leaves you with… Punk and the $15m part timer? There’s every likelihood they fancy squeezing in Cody & Cena doing the Hogan/Warrior super team between now and Jools Hollands Hootenanny, pair of them in a handicap against Bloodline Hollywood would not look out of place in Perth. Followed by a wedding, hopefully. The use of Phase 3 of The Bloodline Saga ending with Cody finally terminating the evil of Roman’s Reign (with inexplicable help from an Undertaker from a different part of the WWE Multiverse) clearly earmarked him to be “your new dad” for the foreseeable future, I can’t see anything but - shenanigans or not - Cody pinning John and there being a proper handshake and “anoint the new king” circle jerk thereafter.

That said… heel Cody would avoid splitting the crowd for Mania 42 if they decide, as I suspect, to run with Cody vs Punk. Although I wouldn’t put it past Cookie Monster to lobby to get turned heel either on account of (a) he obviously prefers being a cunt and (b) it ensures he doesn’t have to wrestle Rollins anymore.

[NeverYield]

Cena heel turn x2 incoming 

[Supremo]

Triple H so busy sucking off Donald Trump that he sent the producers next week’s script rather than this week’s! This was the perfect Smackdown-after-Summerslam segment, after Cody has won the Title and they want to pivot the Cena character for the final few months. Not the fucking go-home angle!

Baffling direction. We’ll have to wait and see what happens on Sunday, but I can’t come up with anything that makes this work. Either it’s a swerve, Cardi B really is costing Cody the match, and yet again he looks like the dumbest man alive. Or this was a legitimate reset and now even if Cody wins you don’t get anywhere near the catharsis of him extinguishing his demons and beating the Big Baddie.

I was convinced Cody was going to respond, “Fine speech, but I’m not stupid,” before knocking Cena out. Him immediately grabbing some beers was ridiculous.

There’s no denying the Cena heel run has been a disaster, and the sooner they turn him back the better, but at least squeeze what little juice you have out of it! Naturally reach the satisfying conclusion! As it stands, at the start of the third act they’ve had the antagonist just apologise for all his wrongdoings. Biff Tannen apologising to Marty, George and Lorraine McFly and sharing a drink at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance before he gets punched out. Great Scott!

A cynic would watch this and think Hunter Hearst Helmsley is a petty hack, more interested in getting digs in on Travis Scott and The Rock than writing a proper story that protects his Golden Goose. Dumb at the best of times, but positively silly considering January is only twenty one weeks away. It feels like Dwayne Wrecks Everything Season comes round sooner every year.

Edited August 2, 2025 by Supremo

[RedTwoster]

That was odd, and it probably wasn’t helped by the fact the Summerslam build in its entirety has been so rushed. I don’t know if this was aborting the plan, an attempt at ‘surprising the audience’ with either Cena turning again, Rock and Scott turning up or Cody turning (or a combination of this) but we’ll see I suppose. It felt messy, whatever it was. 

The half-arsed build towards Cargill/Stratton was very odd. She’s a mixed bag in-ring, but Jade certainly has the ability to hold her own on the mic well enough. Why even do the match if you’re going to treat it like that? 

Mr Iguana was pretty fun, but if they’re looking to create interest in AAA, having two wrestlers who have been treated as meaningless jokes go over the visiting wrestlers isn’t the way to do it. Joe Tessitore doing the Michael Cole laugh at Iguana’s antics grated on me.

I’m making the argument for this now - we should be able to nominate the entire Smackdown tag division for ‘worst wrestler’ at the UKFF Awards this year. WWE treats them as one entity, so therefore we should be able to do that. I suppose that means if you’re insane, you should be able to nominate them for ‘best wrestler’ too. But yeah, I won’t sleep well if their awfulness is not recognised in some way come the end of the year. It’s not the fault of the individual wrestlers, but equally, there isn’t an individual wrestler who has been worse than the presentation of this division.

Solo Sikoa has improved a lot on the mic. I don’t see him ever rising to World Champion level, but in terms of overall ability, he’s probably better than either Jey or Jimmy.

I hope they inject some fresh talent on to Smackdown after Sumnerslam - a Trick Williams, Obe Femi, Ethan Page, Sol Ruca or Blake Monroe would make a world of difference. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

Not to piss on KFogg’s cornflakes, but Cena turning heel again on Sunday is the only outcome that makes sense.

[Guest]

I kind of love the idea of them going "the only thing that worked from this heel turn was the turn itself, so we're going to do it again". 

There's kind of four scenarios, as I see it. 

1) it's a swerve and Cena turns heel on him again, prolonging the agony. Definitely plausible, if terrible. 

2) it's not a swerve and Cody turns heel. That seems really unlikely, if only because there's absolutely no reason to do it here rather than on the night itself. 

3) Cody just wins a babyface v babyface match. Plausible, I guess? Perhaps John needs to take some time off and they want him coming back as a face. Perhaps Travis Scott wouldn't come in and do business, brother, so they've changed everything on the fly. 

4) Seth cashes in. 

None of those options make "Cena turns on the go home show" a good idea. You've been building a story in one direction for ages and then switch the dynamic completely in the last show? That's terrible storytelling, irrespective of what you're doing. 

[Mr Kennedy]

42 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Not to piss on KFogg’s cornflakes, but Cena turning heel again on Sunday is the only outcome that makes sense.

Only for Rock to then turn on Cena, allowing Cody, who has now sold his soul to Rock, to win the title. 
 

Whatever happens, I’m looking forward to discussing the hatewatch with you all on Monday morning.

[Snitsky's back acne]

5 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

I cannot fucking believe it, even for a company like WWE where they constantly drop a bollock and make terrible decisions having John Cena open up smackdown and turn back baby-face out of nowhere. Trying to blame rock and Scott for corrupting him then leaving him alone instead of being by his side. Contradicting everything he's said completely and saying he wants to leave with the belt not to kill the business but so he's not forgotten by the fans.

Then topping it off Cody accepting and welcoming the real John Cena back and having a beer together.

Honestly the fucking worst possible way to do that obvious switch back in history of wrestling that should and could have been done during the match and supposedly the biggest match/actual main event. I'm not buying it being a swerve or anything beneficial for the ppv at all, if anything I believe rock and Scott were meant to be there and part of the match but not bothering now so they did it this way instead.

Fucking awful 

It's the equivalent of this for kids that grew up in the 90's....

Either that or Bobby Ewing in the shower for Dallas fans.
 

[RedTwoster]

58 minutes ago, Duke said:

4) Seth cashes in. 

I could absolutely see this. Unreal highlighted just how much value they place on surprising the audience and keeping things unpredictable (even though  the predictable route is often the most satisfying one) - I could see them convincing themselves that everyone would be expecting Rollins to cash in on Punk, so therefore the best thing to do is have him cash in on either Cody or Cena.

One thing that maybe hasn’t received enough attention is the fact Cena essentially said he turned heel because it made good television. I fucking hate that.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Do they still have to do the champion v champion gimmick in Saudi for the big green belt?

Maybe Seth cashes in on Cena/Cody, and the Punk v Seth vortex finally concludes in Saudi with them both as Champions?

Edited August 2, 2025 by d-d-d-dAz

[Supremo]

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

I can’t come up with anything that makes this work.

I figured it out!

Cena said a rapper wouldn’t interfere to cost Cody. He said nothing about a Superstar Country Music Singer!

Carny Jeff jumps ship and somehow gets another few years out of his in-ring career.

Has Cody ever wrestled Double J? Genuine dream match!

 

 

[TheScarlettChad]

The Final Boss is gonna screw Cena and it'll be awful 

[d-d-d-dAz]

I actually think the Seth cash-in makes the most sense, currently. As much as that upsets me.

If you want that moment at the end where Cena and Cody look at each other at the close of the show like 'what the fuck just happened?', and have it implicit that they're going to have to team up against Seth and his mates, they really need to have made some sort of peace before the main event. 

If that is what they're doing, weird half an hour match before we get to the cash in.

[Supremo]

The cash in at Summerslam should have been the catalyst. John equally as angry as Cody that they’ve both been robbed of a real winner. They teased it with the Punk match in Saudi.

As much as I don’t rate Seth, and dread him carrying the company as Champion, it would have at least made sense that Cody and Cena would eventually bond over this dickhead stealing the belt from both of them. I suggested as much in the Summerslam thread.

Write a fucking story though! Give some causality! As it is, Cena just woke up yesterday morning like Ebenezer Scrooge, completely changed. They didn’t even bother to show the montage of him being visited by the ghosts of JBL, Umaga and Edge. Where was the clip of Cena getting out of the shower, with the last six months being a bad dream?

Dreadful writing however you look at it. All this chat of them writing the last chapter of his book, and they’ve seemingly skipped three pages!