Hello and welcome to a unique Smackdown preview today, unique not only because it's me, Michael Hanflit, joined by our producer, Adam Nicholas.

Hello.

And nobody else, part-timers, what can I say?

Well, hang on.

I mean, not nobody else.

This guy, I've been increasingly suspicious of his true contributions to this podcast, Nicholas.

Look at him, arrogant.

Anyway, welcome to the Smackdown preview.

Weird one today because, well, presumably it's going to be a weird show.

We do have a lineup of things to cover.

We're only two weeks out from SummerSlam.

This is the penultimate Smackdown before the biggest birdie de Sjum.

But it doesn't quite feel right to start with Smackdown saluting and all the usual stuff

that like me, Willborn, would typically subject you to of a Friday morning, Nicholas,

because we have to start with presumably where Smackdown will start,

and indeed maybe where Smackdown will land for the entire duration of the show.

For those that might not be aware, and if you're hearing this for the first time, Hulk Hogan passed away yesterday at the age of 71. Just really briefly on that, we'll be talking about, obviously, Hogan here, but then there will be a long-form conversation about the good, the bad and the ugly, of Hulk Hogan between myself and Andy Murray. That'll go out on the Wat Cter Main Channel, where we've also put out kind of all the news and everything we know up to this point about Hogan's passing. You know, coverage is going to run and run in the days, weeks and months to come on, I think, in arguably the biggest icon in progress in history, a cultural icon that transcended progress and that has passed away, but certainly a complex one. And I guess that feels like a good place to start in our discussion, here, Nicholas. We have seen WWP tribute to legends in different ways, and ones with checkered pasts

have still received the video packages, the talking heads from the rest of that were inspired

and so on.

Hogan is a level above all of them, and it's rare that we can say that without caveats and qualifiers. There is, I would say, only Vince McMahon's passing that would be bigger, and probably only Austin and the Rocks that is equal. This is kind of as big as it gets as far as a pro wrestler goes.

What do you think?

Well, first, I guess some like thoughts on Hogan

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