WWE: SmackDown to be Preempted At Least Twice This Fall, Karl Anderson on Past Anti-WWE Comments, Mick Foley

Aug 10, 2023

WWE SmackDown to be Preempted At Least Twice This Fall Over Upcoming MLB Playoffs & College Football Season

WWE reportedly will be facing two scheduled and one potential preemptions for their SmackDown shows on FOX during this upcoming MLB Post-season and College Football season, according to PWInsider.

Mike Johnson reported that the October 27th SmackDown show will be preempted from FOX and moved over to FS1 due to FOX will be airing Game 1 of this year’s MLB World Series that night on their network.

Johnson reported that the November 3rd SmackDown show could also be facing a potential preemption from FOX and would be moved over to FS1 due to FOX potentially airing Game 6 of this year’s MLB World Series on their network if needed.

Johnson also reported that the November 24th SmackDown show will be preempted from FOX and moved over to FS1 due to FOX will be airing the College Football game of Oregon State vs. Oregon on their network that night.

Karl Anderson Comments on His Reason for His Past Anti-WWE Comments

A recent episode of the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast featured Karl Anderson as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Anderson’s thoughts on past comments he made that were very negative against WWE following the end of his first run and release from the company in October of 2020.

“So let’s say this, when we (Good Brothers) were released by the WWE in April of 2020 and I think it caught us by surprise and so, being an emotional and fiery person that wants the best out of his profession, there was feelings of anger and angst about it, and I wasn’t sure that we’d come back either and so that’s why we made sure that for those two years that we were gone, we hit it hard and we didn’t take any breaks and I was almost busier than a lot of people in the industry for those couple years and feels the more that we were gone, the more we started to feel some conversations started happening and some of the angst goes away and then you start to realize that some of that might’ve just been the passion that we have inside of us anyway just to be the best and so, next thing you know, it’s two years later after being released, and it was just time. We got a couple texts, a couple texts sent back. Then we got a couple from Triple H and it was like right around the time our IMPACT contract was finishing and we sat down and we fixed it and figured it out. I’m happy that it happened, I’m happy it worked out and everything is going really well right now.
Sometimes you gotta man up. Maybe I said some things and absolutely said some things that I think were said out of passion. When you’re angry about something or if you’re worked up about something, you’re gonna say what you feel and say what you think might be right or might not be right but, who knows what was going on behind the scenes that time? Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes now sometimes? I don’t know all that stuff and who knows who’s calling the shots at certain points at that time in 2020 so, I’m just glad that we were able to work it out, fix it and just be men and move on.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

Mick Foley on Ronda Rousey’s Importance to WWE’s Women’s Division

As noted before, Ronda Rousey is believed to have left WWE following this past Saturday’s SummerSlam 2023 event. Rousey recently commented on the issue stating that she no longer has any reason to stay in WWE or continue her wrestling career following her loss to Shayna Baszler at the event.

Mick Foley recently commented on his Facebook page about his support of Rousey following her recent departure from WWE and his belief that without Rousey, WWE’s Women’s division likely would not have achieved the big success it did with being given the main event spot for WrestleMania 35 in 2019.

“It would be easy to dismiss Ronda Rousey‘s time in WWE as something of a disappointment. Maybe she never became as beloved as Becky Lynch, as proficient as Charlotte or Sasha, or had a great long term story arc like the one Rhea Ripley is currently enjoying as part of Judgment Day. I haven’t always been watching the product as intently these past few years as I had for the previous 40, but from what I did see – coupled with a pretty good gut feeling – is that Ronda wasn’t quite as invested emotionally for her second WWE run, as she was for her first. Motherhood has a way of redefining priorities, and rightfully so. But I firmly believe that her first run was not only incredibly impressive in the ring, but even more consequential in introducing new eyeballs to the product, and injecting a major dose of credibility into the general public’s perspective of professional wrestling.
I was in the crowd in San Jose for WrestleMania when my pal Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson introduced Ronda to the crowd to a thunderous ovation. She was quite simply, the baddest woman on the planet. And while the back-to-back defeats she suffered in UFC may have taken a little shine from her, Ronda was still this incredibly sparkling diamond in the rough when she made her WWE debut at 2018’s WrestleMania. That match, where she teamed with Kurt Angle to take on WWE’s power couple of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon was my personal favorite match of 2018. That’s not to say it was the best match of 2018 – merely my favorite. It was one of those matches I need every once in a while to remind me of why I fell in love with pro-wrestling to begin with. I specifically remember watching the show with friends, and during this incredible moment where she had Triple H rocking and reeling, I just yelled out, “she’s not phoning it in!” She certainly wasn’t. Ronda Rousey took pride in what she did, worked diligently to become really good, really fast, and as she progressed, had good-to-great matches with a variety of opponents.
Without Ronda, it’s highly unlikely WWE would have featured a women’s match as its main event at WrestleMania in 2019. I still believe the real marquee match would have been Becky versus Ronda in a singles match – but nonetheless, let the record show that Ronda Rousey main evented WrestleMania with just one year of professional wrestling experience.
I would put Ronda’s rapid progress up there with that of Steve Austin, Kurt Angle and The Rock – the fastest learning curves I’ve personally seen in our business. But each of those giants had one formidable arrow in their quivers that Ronda never quite got the grasp of – the ability to cut a great promo. That’s really all that was missing, all that prevented Ronda from being considered an all-time great. Steve Austin was a respected and admired worker for eight years before he caught fire with the “Stone Cold” character and became one of the biggest drawing cards of all time. Dwayne Johnson went through some growing pains as Rocky Miavia before his switch-flipping heel turn that revealed one of the greatest entertainers in our business, or any other. Kurt Angle, as amazing as he was in the ring, became a beloved and iconic character by utilizing an innate sense of comedic timing that would have been impossible to guess at. If Ronda had an achilles’ heel as a performer, it was that all of her mistakes were made on the big stage, and that her wrestling character did not evolve as quickly as her in-ring skills did.
I only met Ronda once – during that first run with the company. But I remember watching her and marveling at how much fun she was to watch interacting with her WWE peers. This was during the time when Bo Dallas and Joe Hennig were teaming as “The B Team”, and I specifically remember Ronda just lighting up the faces of those around her with some type of little dance she did ringside when the “B Team” music was played. I remember thinking how comfortable she looked, and how supported she was, and I specifically remember thinking that if she could take a little bit of what I saw of her ringside and put it into her character, that she could become one of the great performers in WWE history.
I don’t think most fans equate Ronda with humor or with warmth. But those were the qualities I saw on display – those are the qualities I really believe could have been put to work. For the time being, at least, I will be left to wonder “what if”. But while those two words “what if” may remind me of what Ronda Rousey could have become in WWE, they don’t lessen what she actually was – a great worker with a love and respect for WWE that benefited everyone around her.