WWE are definitely going to the top rope with this one. This week’s SmackDown taping witnessed something very peculiar when former tag team champion Darren Young received a partner of sorts.
We’re not talking about Titus O’Neil, who served out his suspension and has wrestled twice since walking through the doors of the WWE once again. We’re talking about WWE Hall of Famer Bob Backlund.
Double take done? The idiosyncratic Hall of Famer whose Harvey Dent-like persona is hard to forget, returned on SmackDown as a mentor to a troubled Young, who asked for his guidance.
Backlund’s new role as a life coach had us staring into space for a while, but it remains to be seen if the master of the Crossface Chickenwing can fulfil his aim to “Make Darren Great Again”.
Backlund is the second longest reigning WWE Champion in history after Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino. His current run with the WWE, which is his fourth, began in 2012 and if fans recall correctly, featured a segment in 2013 where he played WWE 2K14 with the Primetime Players.
This nascent and vulnerable angle was Darren Young’s brainchild which he thought up as early as September 2015, when the Primetime Players split.
