Nothing is going right for Cody Rhodes. On WWE SmackDown, Rhodes and Jelly Roll were once again staring at the lights as Randy Orton and Pat McAfee stood tall.<\/p>\n
There’s more going on than meets the eye with Orton and McAfee’s partnership. This week’s show revealed more about their alliance: McAfee has sway with upper management, and the situation is bigger than people understand. With WrestleMania 42 eight days away, the clock is ticking on more reveals.<\/p>\n
The celebrity crossovers didn’t stop there. Grammy-nominated rapper Lil Yacthy paid the price for his working relationship with Trick Williams. Plus, Royce Keys, formerly AEW’s Powerhouse Hobbs, made his SmackDown debut.<\/p>\n
CBS Sports was with you all night with recaps and highlights of all the action from SAP Center in San Jose, California.<\/p>\n
Orton and McAfee are running the show<\/p>\n
Corporate politics are getting in the way of Rhodes’ revenge tour. Early in the show, SmackDown general manager Nick Aldis warned Rhodes not to get physical with McAfee. This wasn’t Aldis protecting McAfee. Instead, it was the directive of upper management. Jelly Roll told Rhodes to forget about McAfee and to focus on Orton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jelly Roll confronted McAfee when he arrived at the arena. The Grammy winner shoved McAfee into a wall, reminding Aldis that he doesn’t abide by WWE directives. McAfee claimed this was bigger than Jelly Roll understood. He also warned the musician to be more careful with Orton lurking around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, McAfee grabbed a microphone and headed to the ring. He roasted the San Jose crowd, CM Punk, Rhodes, the state of WWE and more. This fleshed out into a verbal confrontation between him and Rhodes. Their heated conversation was interrupted by Orton, who dragged a lifeless Jelly Roll onto the stage. This spun into a physical confrontation with Orton and McAfee coming out on top.<\/p>\n
It’s hard not to feel like this storyline is cluttered. WrestleMania has always invited celebrity crossovers. It’s part of the pageantry. But there must be better ways to utilize outside names than this. Rhodes vs. Orton writes itself. It’s a 20-year-long story between pupil and mentor. The pupil ascended to heights no one, not even his mentor, imagined. Now, the disgruntled mentor must use every dirty trick for one last moment in a fading spotlight. They don’t need Jelly Roll and McAfee. They should have been incorporated into a different storyline that needed more material. Grade: C<\/p>\n
What else happened on WWE SmackDown?Alexa Bliss def. Bayley via pinfall with a schoolboy pin.Royce Keys def. Humberto Carrillo via pinfall after hitting a spinning spinebuster.Jacob Fatu def. Tama Tonga via pinfall with a double-jump moonsault. Post-match, McIntyre delivered a brutal beatdown on Fatu.Trick Williams def. Matt Cardona via pinfall after landing Trickshot. During the match, Zayn hit Lil Yachty with a Helluva Kick.Danhausen def. Kit Wilson via pinfall with a pump kick.\u00a0Jade Cargill def. IYO SKY via pinfall after hitting Jaded. Post-match, Rhea Ripley saved SKY from a steel chair beatdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing is going right for Cody Rhodes. On WWE SmackDown, Rhodes and Jelly Roll were once again staring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,155112,23863,22289,6760,22290,13015,226554],"class_list":{"0":"post-597363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-grades","12":"tag-location","13":"tag-matches","14":"tag-updates","15":"tag-winners","16":"tag-wwe","17":"tag-wwe-smackdown-live-results"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}