Michael Cole shockingly names blacklisted former WWE superstar on SmackDown

Michael Cole namedropped somebody who many believed would never ever be mentioned on WWE television again. It was a former superstar who happens to be blacklisted from WWE and has been for years.

This week on SmackDown, the New Year's edition was headlined by an ambulance match between Damian Priest and Aleister Black. This marked the first-ever ambulance match in SmackDown history, which is a surprising statistic in itself. There haven't been many ambulance matches throughout WWE history, as it's very much a 21st-century thing. However, one of those ambulance matches took place as a stipulation for the Three Stages of Hell match. That happened over a decade ago between John Cena and Ryback.

Ryback, as many of you know, is a superstar who has been effectively blacklisted from the WWE for all the comments he made about the company once he was done there. He has lost a lot of support, but this was the first time in years that WWE had mentioned him, which is why it was surprising to see Michael Cole mention his name.

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Ultimately, it was just the mention of a name, and it means little beyond that. Michael Cole called a good part of Ryback's career. As for the ambulance match on SmackDown, Damian Priest and Aleister Black would end up going to war, and in the end, Priest stood tall thanks to some help from Rhea Ripley.

However, Ripley only provided a crucial assist to neutralize Zelina Vega. The rest was all Damian Priest, and he had to make sure to take steps he wouldn't normally take to secure the victory. The nature of the ambulance match is as such where it's not as easy as one thinks, despite the fact that there are no pinfalls or submissions. SmackDown has got off to an incredible start in 2026.

Edited by Rohit Nath