WWE Rumors: ‘Friday Night SmackDown’ Team Reportedly Set To Be Repackaged


According to WrestlingNews.co, WWE is considering a new gimmick for Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake — otherwise known as The Forgotten Sons — when they return to television. The report doesn’t state if their teammate Jaxson Ryker will be joining them.

The report states that the team’s gimmick is too controversial for the current social climate. Their characters are army veterans who have been shunned by society, and the consensus backstage is that they should be repackaged due to the protests happening in the United States at the moment.

The Friday Night SmackDown stable was reportedly set to enter into a Tag Team Championship feud with The New Day. They were subsequently removed from WWE television after Ryker tweeted his support of Donald Trump and his handling of the protests. This also led to some of his previous social media posts re-emerging, including one in which he described the Black Lives Matter movement as “garbage.” In another post that resurfaced, Ryker posed in a costume that many people deemed racially insensitive.

Ryker’s posts upset some of his colleagues, and there have been reports of him having backstage heat. Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Mustafa Ali all criticized his pro-Trump stance on social media. However, there have also been reports that some superstars and members of WWE management agree with his opinions, as there are other fans of the president in the company.

As highlighted by the WrestlingNews.co report, it’s unknown if Ryker has reached out to the upset members of the WWE locker room to make amends. His comments appear to have affected his push, however, as the company has opted to replace the team with Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro on WWE television.

The report doesn’t give any indication as to when Cutler and Blake will return to television, with or without Ryker. Characters being repackaged usually take months to come to fruition, so it may take a while before they’re back on the blue brand’s weekly show. This could also result in them being sent back to NXT, as is often the case for superstars who receive character makeovers.

The Forgotten Sons are fairly recent additions to the main roster, having been promoted from NXT earlier this year. Being absent from television shouldn’t affect them too much as they were pulled from television as their push was about to commence, but it’s clear that the company was ready to give them a big opportunity before the circumstances changed.

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