SmackDown airs tonight (Apr. 3) with a live show emanating from Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the fifth episode of SmackDown during the seven week build to WrestleMania 42, which takes place on the weekend of April 18 and 19.
It’s WrestleMania season, which normally means Raw and SmackDown will reduce some of its match time in favor of promos and angles that build towards WWE’s most important show of the year. However, WWE is taking that concept to the extreme tonight considering that zero matches are booked for 3 hour SmackDown as of this writing. And it’s not like Roman Reigns and CM Punk are on the blue brand to kill one of those hours with entrances that seemingly never end. Orton posted a video on social media confirming that the mystery person who has been coaching him through his heel run will appear on WWE SmackDown this week, and the location could not be more fitting. St. Louis is Orton’s hometown, and bringing his mystery ally into that building is a calculated move. Fans have been predicting Bob Orton Jr., the Apex Predator’s real-life father, as the most likely candidate, with the “Royal Family” angle pointing directly to a legacy storyline. Whatever the reveal is, it will send shockwaves straight into his WrestleMania 42 title clash against Cody Rhodes.
This was a more common occurrence when I wrote WWE previews here during Vince McMahon’s time in charge. It stands out more when it happens now since it’s a rarer thing under Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s creative leadership. Nonetheless, WWE will have to announce matches at some point today, and hopefully it won’t just be obvious filler like a 45 minute gauntlet match with a bunch of tag teams that are going nowhere. WWE says ass-kicker Cody Rhodes will “surely be on the warpath” tonight to try spoiling Randy Orton’s homecoming on the road to WrestleMania. It might not be so hard for Randy to avoid the WWE champion’s wrath if Cody doesn’t show up to work again until 5 or 10 minutes before SmackDown goes off the air, like last week. The big hook here is Randy saying he will meet his mystery caller tonight. WWE is warning that you should “brace yourself for the fallout” of GM Nick Aldis announcing an Unsanctioned match between Jacob Fatu and Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania 42.
