Tyson Fury Confirmed for This Week’s WWE SmackDown

Thanks to a well-timed punch, undefeated heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury won his WWE debut against Braun Strowman via count out at the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. And while Fury’s main focus is now on his heavyweight championship rematch with Deontay Wilder in February 2020, the lineal heavyweight champ will make at least one more appearance on WWE television this week. WWE confirmed via WWE Backstage on Tuesday night that the “Gypsy King” will appear on this week’s SmackDown in Manchester, England. The news update on WWE.com regarding his appearance also teased the possibility of another encounter with Strowman.

“Are Fury and Strowman headed for another epic collision?” the site asked. Surprisingly, Strowman hasn’t said much about his loss to Fury since it happened.

Amid the chaotic travel issues in Saudi Arabia, Tyson Fury reportedly made it out of the country before the majority of the roster was held up due to delays.

During the latest episode of After The Bell, Corey Graves chastised the outspoken WWE wrestlers who took to Twitter following the delays.

“So they deplaned everybody, at some point there were some people from management came around and said, ‘Hey, if we can get a group of you guys to SmackDown, would you be willing to do it?’ This is where it comes down to being a professional. We wanted to do it,” Graves explained as he recalled the situation. “So the reported, we’ve been given the sort of nickname, ‘The #Saudi20.’ Depending on who you ask, it was the 20 most important people in the company, or the 20 most important people on the plane. That wasn’t the case. What it boiled down to was the people that were advertised for Friday Night SmackDown on FOX. Your King Corbin’s, Roman Reigns, The Revival, New Day — guys that had advertised matches that did not want to let anybody down, including ourselves.

“It had nothing to do with who was more important or who had the most cache,” he added, saying less important guys than himself and Michael Cole wound up trying to leave on that second chartered flight.

He continued — “It sucks, no two ways about it. But all these conspiracy theories that have been drawn up, and half of it comes from some of the boys that were on the plane. If you are that insecure and you feel so strongly that you’re gonna get on Twitter and complain because our flight got screwed up for whatever the reason would be, what’s Twitter gonna do? All it is is fuel for these journalists, so to speak, and then it gets on the Internet and everyone puts their two cents in and starts coming up with their conspiracy theories. And if you’re mad that your flight got delayed and you weren’t one of the ‘Saudi 20,’ you weren’t important enough to get on the jet, that’s on you. Quit crying about it on Twitter. You’re a WWE Superstar, this happens, this is part of our life. We all have travel woes, we all have travel issues.”