3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.’s weekly review of “WWE SmackDown,” the show built from start to finish around a funeral for a dead gingerbread man costume! Would we really be the WINC staff if we didn’t have thoughts on that? We submit to you that we would not. And that’s not all — we also have thoughts on Cody Rhodes’ segment with Paul Heyman and GUNTHER, Tiffany Stratton’s first-ever women’s US title defense, Jacob Fatu’s final promo on the Bloodline before Backlash, and more!

Now, for at least a few more weeks “SmackDown” is still three hours long, and there’s still no way we can talk about everything that happened on the show (with apologies to this week’s Fatal Influence match). If you need to catch up, or just want comprehensive and objective coverage, check out our 5/8/26 “SmackDown” results page. If, however, you want to know what the WINC crew thought about the show — or at least the parts we found particularly memorable, for better or worse — here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/8/26 episode of “WWE SmackDown!”

Tomorrow night is Backlash, but other than the opening promo from Jacob Fatu, the Danhausen segments, and the closing minutes of “SmackDown,” it didn’t feel like a go-home show. Overall, it was a routine show, complete with outside interference in three out of the five matches — and it would’ve been four if Solo Sikoa didn’t stop Talla Tonga from interfering in Tama Tonga’s match. Moreover, all the matches with interference had nothing to do with Backlash.

Throughout the show, we got backstage segments at the Gingerbread Man’s funeral. Sami Zayn and R-Truth had a funny bit together and it was one of the few highlights from an otherwise mundane show. Even the funeral segment itself had interferences. Zayn interrupted Trick Williams because he was angry about all the money spent on the funeral and the pitchy singers. The Gingerbread was not actually dead (although creative reportedly killed it due to fan feedback) and it arose from the casket and removed its head to reveal Lil Yachty, who is presumably going to be involved in Zayn and Williams’ match tomorrow night because WWE can’t have a PLE without at least one celebrity. We might get two celebrities if the rumors are true that Danhausen’s mysteryhausen partner is Jelly Roll.

Backlash often feels like an afterthought and tonight’s episode of “SmackDown” didn’t help. Cody Rhodes is already looking ahead to Clash in Italy at the end of the month. Personally, I am looking ahead to two-hour episodes because it’s a struggle to get through three.

Written by Samantha Schipman

The best part of this week’s “WWE SmackDown” occurred right at the beginning of the show as Jacob Fatu came out to make his final address before challenging the “Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship this weekend.

Reigns wasn’t there because he’s exclusive to “WWE Raw” and expensive to book, so the onus fell on the Usos to cross the brand divide and reason Fatu out of his position. Once again it was Jimmy playing the good cop and Jey playing the bad cop, one talking about if Jacob loses and the other talking about when he will lose.

That continues to make sense coming from two brothers with very different experiences opposite Reigns. Jey played into that as he broke down all of the ways Reigns is going to make Fatu suffer the price of challenging the “Tribal Chief.” But Fatu also did when he laid out that Jey isn’t the one to be handing out advice.

For the first time, Fatu put out the warning against the Usos getting involved. If they do, like they have done so many times before in Reigns title matches and familial conflicts, he will not hesitate to run through them. That carries weight given he has spent the past few weeks doing nothing but running through everyone stood in his way, including Reigns. Fatu feels like a credible threat coming into this weekend and there is a tangible feeling of fear from who stood in his way.

The Usos are going to be obligated to get involved, and while Jey seems more than happy to fit back into his role, Jimmy has shown to be conflicted when it comes to picking between Reigns and their cousin. This segment had me a little more interested in how everything goes down on Saturday and I was already quite intrigued in it as it was. That’s surely what the segment was designed to do and it played out perfectly as far as I’m concerned.

Written by Max Everett

Let’s start with the positives in the Women’s United States Championship match between Tiffany Stratton and Kiana James, since there were certainly some things about this that I did like. I quite enjoyed the in-ring psychology at play here with James targeting Stratton’s knee throughout the duration of the match, as I thought that it really allowed for her strategic, calculating character work to shine front and center. I also think that sowing seeds of dissension between James and Giulia added an interesting dynamic to things, especially because I’ve been keen on seeing Giulia without a manager given that I don’t think she really needed one in the first place.

There was one glaring thing about this Women’s United States Championship match that was hard for me to ignore, and that was the fact that James was the one who received the match over Giulia. Stratton was the one to dethrone Giulia as Women’s United States Champion, so at the very least, I think Giulia should’ve received her rematch before James got a shot of her own. It just makes more sense in my mind for WWE to have done things that way instead of just giving James a shot ahead of Giulia, especially because it could’ve waited another week and the dissension could’ve been done regardless if Giulia had been the one to get the title shot. All in all, while I didn’t mind the action itself, I just had a hard time looking past the fact that this match needed another week before it took place.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

When Brock Lesnar seemingly retired, apparently unbeknownst to Paul Heyman, I figured the entire storyline with Heyman owing GUNTHER a favor would be thrown out, with WWE hoping a majority of fans wouldn’t remember it. The rumors were that the favor would be Heyman getting GUNTHER a match with Lesnar at SummerSlam, which is in Lesnar’s adopted hometown this year, and that doesn’t seem to be happening. I really like, though I am very surprised, that they’re still following up with the favor storyline even without Lesnar.

GUNTHER defeated Seth Rollins at WrestleMania, which led to the return of Bron Breakker, so only those of us really tuned in to the product would probably even remember that there was a story there between Heyman and GUNTHER after a few more weeks. There are plenty of things that have been dropped in recent memory, the one coming to mind immediately being Jacob Fatu’s attacker who messed his teeth and put him on the shelf for months, so WWE creative insulting the intelligence of its fans isn’t all that uncommon.

“The Ring General” attacked Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes last week in what seemed then to be pretty random, as many expected Rhodes and Randy Orton to run their feud back quickly after Rhodes was medically cleared. While we haven’t seen Orton since ‘Mania, we at least now know more about why GUNTHER is out for Rhodes. Of course, he wants the title, and he cashed in that favor with Heyman to get himself a match at Clash in Italy. And in a further move, GUNTHER seemingly had Heyman help him move between rosters to get closer to Rhodes.

I really liked that Heyman let Rhodes know during the promo that the favor was getting GUNTHER the contract for the match, and that was it, Rhodes has to get GUNTHER to sign the contract himself. The segment also left things a bit open ended, with Rhodes asking Heyman if he was out of options between Lesnar retiring and CM Punk and Roman Reigns wanting nothing to do with him.

I don’t necessarily want to see Heyman and GUNTHER team up, especially since Heyman has The Vision on “WWE Raw,” who Rhodes failed to mention. Though I don’t know if I mind that part of the story not being 100 percent clear right now. I guess it leaves things interesting, but the most important part of all of this was WWE following up on something I didn’t expect to see after Lesnar seemingly changed up plans on his own.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I can’t say tonight was the most interesting episode of the blue brand, and I’ve said all I care to say in recent days about the entire gingerbread man saga, but one of the most disappointing things of the episode was the fact former NXT Champion Ricky Saints went from stepping up to Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes in his “SmackDown” debut last week, to facing who he literally called “QB4” backstage, Matt Cardona. No disrespect to Cardona, but it just seemed like WWE was going to position Saints more like Trick Williams, and Williams started off much hotter.

The match was uninspired and pretty boring, and I don’t know if that’s because Cardona is worried about wife Chelsea Green recovering from heart surgery at home, but the match itself just fell very flat. I was honestly surprised to see Cardona on the show at all, but I guess they do live in Florida. It just wasn’t his night, and he just wasn’t the opponent for Saints. He hit the Famouser, which Saints just kicked out of, to hit his own Roshambo for the win.

Maybe I felt that way because Saints worked so well with his real-life buddy Rhodes last week. I’m also not sure exactly what Cardona’s place on the “SmackDown” roster is, I guess just taking losses to up-and-coming guys like Saints, but it’s just not exciting. Cardona isn’t the first person I would have thought of if you asked me who I’d like to see Saints face. My first thoughts would have been Carmelo Hayes or Ilja Dragunov.

I think Saints fits into the United States Championship picture and eventually faces Williams, or whoever beats Williams for the title, so putting him in amongst those guys would have made a lot more sense. Both would have been excellent matches on an episode which could have used just a little more excitement. Heck, there’s even Shinsuke Nakamura, who’s still involved in whatever’s going on between him and Tama Tonga, but it would be nice to see him in the ring.

The match wasn’t terribly offensive or anything, but it was forgettable. After Saints squared up to Rhodes last week, interrupting his opening promo and everything, as a “NXT” fan, where Saints thrived, this all kind of stunk tonight, though at least Saints got the “W.”

Written by Daisy Ruth

Look, I know this gingerbread man thing is stupid, but I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Pro wrestling is stupid. It’s stupid and weird and often hilariously funny, and the running joke of the gingerbread man’s funeral throughout this episode was all those things. It turns out Sami Zayn (much like his forever frenemy, Kevin Owens) plays a tremendous straight man, especially when the straight man’s job is to react in ever-increasing horror and disbelief to a ridiculous situation that everyone else accepts without question. Zayn walking around the gingerbread man’s wake, interacting with the likes of R-Truth and the comatose Johnny Gargano, was absolute gold, but it was nothing compared to what awaited us in the main event segment.

Trick Williams, it must be said, really made this segment work, literally pouring one out for the gingerbread man and singing along with a terrible choir. Zayn came out to further express his disbelief (and call out the choir for being off-key) and did an amazing job of tying the whole thing back to their upcoming match at Backlash. And then, in the best possible pay-off to this entire angle, the gingerbread man rose from the dead like a freshly-baked messiah, revealing himself as Lil Yachty and revenging himself upon Zayn with deadly red-and-white-striped strikes! 

It was absolute nonsense, and I loved every minute of it. Five-star classics are all well and good, but as far as I’m concerned, this is professional wrestling.

Written by Miles Schneiderman