After a tumultuous few days for Vince McMahon and WWE amid allegations of misconduct that are currently being investigated, it was announced that Mr. McMahon himself would be on tonight’s episode of Smackdown, despite temporarily stepping down from his position as CEO and Chairman.

What could come of this, the WWE Universe wondered? Since Vince reportedly still has creative control, anything felt fair game. Could he own up to his mistakes and apologize to the loyal fanbase? Could he turn it all into some sort of angle in an attempt to rally his fans against the investigations?

Well, while the former option was, in hindsight, a fever dream, the latter did not really happen either, at least not explicitly.

That’s right, among cuts of the audience aggressively cheering the currently-former CEO, Vince repeated the company slogan, welcomed everyone to Smackdown, tossed the mic, and dipped. Needless to say, Twitter was not so kind to this segment, and their distaste was absolutely justified. Here are some noteworthy reactions from the app:

DailyDDT focused on how the crowd reacted to Vince’s arrival. The cameras were able to find plenty of people in the crowd who were excited to see Vince, complete with cheers and singalongs to his theme music, and these fans were on full display for the world to see, as if this was more of a PR and ratings move than anything else.

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful was able to summarize the entire segment within the length of a tweet, and still had room to add “That was really weird” At the end. Well, he is certainly not wrong.

The official Fightful account also noted the sheer emptiness of the segment. Does anyone remember Vince’s appearance at the start of the July 16th edition of Smackdown? Well, while that was a simple, quick, and admittedly funny segment referencing WWE’s return to live crowds, the segment tonight did not feel much longer, and it was a direct response to something much more serious and damaging to the company as a whole.

https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1537949143938699270

David Bixenspan provided a pretty interesting theory as to why the segment ended up being so vapid and strange. Again, Vince reportedly still has creative control, but in the hours between the initial announcement of Vince’s Smackdown appearance and the actual show, perhaps he was convinced to tone down his speech in order to save face. While the concept of Vince McMahon deciding to tone it down seems strange on the surface, the sheer volume of mainstream coverage of the investigations has turned this into a PR nightmare that WWE as a company probably wants to do damage control on as much as they can.

Finally, we have Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez’s belief that this was the predictable route for Vince to take. And, despite the frenzy caused by all of the recent news and the announcement of Vince’s appearance, perhaps he is right. Mr. McMahon getting cheered by the Minneapolis crowd as he emphasized their status as a ‘family’ – all the while avoiding anything that would explicitly dig the hole any deeper – could have always been his intention. WWE is certainly known for exploiting the dedication of its fanbase, and this could be yet another example of appealing to just that.

What was your reaction to this Smackdown opening? Let us know.