{"id":642502,"date":"2026-05-02T06:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/642502\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:50:09","slug":"smackdown-recap-reactions-may-1-2026-everyone-fears-jacob-fatu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/642502\/","title":{"rendered":"SmackDown recap &#038; reactions (May 1, 2026): Everyone fears Jacob Fatu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jacob Fatu loomed large over SmackDown. Solo Sikoa, still licking his wounds after his last encounter with the Samoan Werewolf, brought Talla Tonga back to the field. Talla wrecked Damian Priest after Damian &amp; R-Truth defended their tag titles, which teed up the show\u2019s ending nicely. But we\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This is all about territory. Jacob loomed large because both the Tribal Chief and the MFT leader want him. The Usos, errand boys sent to collect, delivered that message for Roman to their baby brother. Once I got over the hilarity of Jimmy &amp; Jey Uso being hired help, I locked in on Jey bringing up Jacob using the Tongan Death Grip on their big cousin. That\u2019s not something one just does; that\u2019s a desperate measure used during desperate times. It goes back to my feelings on Jacob being a man with truly nothing to lose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">How do they defeat that? The Usos and MFTs battled in this week\u2019s main event but Jacob ensured we got no winner. That same Talla who made Damian Priest look like a child looked helpless when Jacob applied the Tongan Death Grip before Samoan Dropping the big man through the announce table.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jacob looked even more unstoppable when he faced off against The Usos and walked right through them. And I do mean through. Not only did he show no fear but they did nothing to stop him. I wonder how Roman will feel about that. Do they have orders not to touch him? Are they conflicted because he\u2019s family? Or are they just scared?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The entire territory is showing us that everyone should fear this man, including the OTC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Gingerbread homicide aside, this was a very fun SmackDown. All of the matches were solid, they put several Backlash matches on the board, and kept pushing Jacob Fatu\u2019s story. Even involved Royce Keys in a meaningful way. Ricky Saints said SmackDown needs a new main character; it was Jacob this week and the show was better for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">What say you, Cagesiders? Is Roman going to flip on his cousins for not taking out Jacob?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Fatu loomed large over SmackDown. Solo Sikoa, still licking his wounds after his last encounter with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,13015,38036,239437],"class_list":["post-642502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-smackdown","tag-wwe-smackdown-results-reactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642502","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=642502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}