WWE
A big match that was announced for tonight’s March 20 episode of WWE SmackDown will no longer be taking place after a car crash.
The Undisputed WWE Championship scene heading into WrestleMania 42 has seen some significant changes, with Drew McIntyre dropping the title to Cody Rhodes a couple of weeks ago.
This led to Rhodes defending the title against Randy Orton at WrestleMania, while McIntyre splits off into a separate match against Jacob Fatu, who cost McIntyre his match against Rhodes.
However, even though McIntyre and Fatu has been planned for WrestleMania, they were actually set for a match against each other tonight on SmackDown.
Instead, the show opened with a brawl in the parking lot that seemingly started with a car crash.
It appeared as though McIntyre had purposely collided his car into Fatu’s, then attacked Fatu afterwards until WWE officials intervened.
McIntyre then came out to the ring but was cut off by SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis who berated him for his actions.
McIntyre made things personal with Aldis, bringing up Aldis’ son Donovan, saying he’d be ashamed to have such a “corporate stooge” for a father.
Fatu then managed to recover from McIntyre’s attack earlier and brawled with him at ringside – which ultimately resulted in Fatu splashing McIntyre through the announce table.
While WWE SmackDown is still playing out as of this writing, plans ahead of the show reported by PWInsider Elite state that the McIntyre vs Fatu match is not expected to take place tonight, and they are set for another “segment” later in the show as opposed to an official match.
Drew McIntyre Unfortunate Heading Into WrestleMania 42
Drew McIntyre is perhaps the biggest casualty of WWE’s multiple changes in plans for WrestleMania 42 this year.
In January, he won the WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes, and at that point, plans were for McIntyre to walk into Mania as champion and defend against Rhodes.
However, WWE creative led by Triple H made the decision not to re-run McIntyre vs Rhodes as they’d had several matches in the weeks and months prior, instead opting to go with Rhodes vs Randy Orton as the WWE Championship match.
This is far from the first occasion McIntyre has been snubbed from a main event spot like this, and whether it’s the right decision or not, he has every right to feel aggrieved about it.
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6 hours ago by Liam
Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. He first started watching wrestling in 2008, giving him 18 years of active insight into the business.