Select Portions: Lots on tonight's Smackdown, Alpha Academy, Orton (Patreon)

- Higher ups that we spoke to Thursday believed and hoped that Smackdown would return to the version of the show we saw since Triple H took over.

- There were very important people in the company who had no idea if Vince McMahon would be at Friday's show as of Thursday. Apologies for Patreon cutting this off initially

- as Wrestling Observer reported, Roman Reigns isn't set to wrestle at Backlash

- There have been no creative plans for Randy Orton that we've heard of.

- Fightful will be at this weekend's Squared Circle Expo in Indianapolis

- SPOILER NOTE: As of Thursday there was set to be a stretcher job on Smackdown.

- Creative notes were sent along a full 24 hours before Smackdown.

- During WrestleMania Week, Chad Gable and Otis spoke with Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp. When Gable and Otis were asked about their amateur wrestling background and if they ever tested each other. Otis said they always test each other, and he put over Gable’s scoring skills regarding their grappling. Gable said he liked mixing it with the other heavyweights and mentioned he did not cut weight but would go against them and talked about how it allowed him to train 110% all the time.When asked who had hit them the hardest, Otis said his was from Jey Uso with a steel chair, and Gable said he would not say who did it but did say it happened at a live event at the Orlando Armory.

Gable shared a Luke Harper story about trying to test him. He also said anytime they were in a battle royal of sorts, Luke would seek him out and try to take him down. Gable said it did not usually work out for Harper, but that was one of his favorite memories of Luke Harper.