The SmackDown main event scene is getting crowded for all the wrong reasons

We are two weeks out from WrestleMania 41, and WWE is acting like they’re playing a game of musical chairs with a roster that has too many people and not enough seats. Seeing Trick Williams standing tall on SmackDown was intended to be a coronation. Instead, it feels like a setup that could blow up in their faces before the catering gets served.

Mark Henry went on the record about this, and he did not mince words. He called the decision to have Trick hold the US Championship the kiss of death. When a guy who spent decades in the trenches tells you he sees a burial in the making, you probably want to listen. If you throw a guy like Trick into the deep end without the proper narrative water wings, he isn't going to learn how to swim. He’s going to drown in the public perception game.

Cody and Orton are trapped in a nostalgia loop

While the mid-card is busy fighting for scraps, the top of the card is obsessed with chasing the ghost of 1999. Mark Henry has been vocal about the looming collision between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton, suggesting the program is trending toward something straight out of the Attitude Era. That is a dangerous game to play in 2026.

We have seen this movie before. Everyone wants that gritty, glass-shattering energy, but the era of Stone Cold and The Rock doesn't just materialize because you put two legends in a ring and tell them to look angry. If the writers try to force the grit, it comes off as a parody. Nobody needs a modern wrestling show to feel like a reboot of a classic that nobody asked to be remade.

The unforced errors in the locker room

The internal atmosphere is even messier than the booking. We’ve reached a point where the talent is taking their grievances directly to the microphones and social media. Case in point: Disco Inferno is out here making threats after being name-dropped on SmackDown. When you have guys from previous decades inserting themselves into modern storylines via Twitter, it destroys the fourth wall faster than a poorly executed powerbomb.

This isn't just about bad booking or mid-card confusion. It is about a company that cannot seem to keep its house in order. Why are we bringing up peripheral relics when the current roster is struggling to find a consistent identity? Mentioning Disco Inferno on a show that is supposed to be the pinnacle of modern production serves no one. It’s catty, it’s petty, and it makes the main roster discourse feel like a high school group chat gone wrong.

Where does the company go from here?

The road to Vegas for WrestleMania 41 is supposed to be paved with gold, but it currently looks more like a gravel pit. If Cody and Orton are locked into a program that relies on old-school nostalgia, they need to execute it with surgical precision. As reported by Mark Henry, the potential for an Attitude Era vibe is there, but the execution window is tiny. Failure is a distinct possibility if they lean too hard into the aesthetic and not enough into the character evolution.

The current state of the US title scene is frankly embarrassing. You have talented individuals standing around feeling like props because the creative team doesn't have a plan for them beyond a single night of shock value. You can't build a star by letting them touch a title for five minutes and then dragging them back down to the mid-card treadmill the following week. It kills the momentum, ruins the character credibility, and leaves fans wondering why they should bother cheering for anyone who isn't already a guaranteed Hall of Famer.

If the plan for the next month is to rely on nostalgia baits like Disco Inferno references and half-baked main event pushes, the post-WrestleMania hangover is going to be brutal. We want evolution. We want something that feels like it belongs in the present, not a tribute act that costs a premium subscription fee.