New Ring Name For Chad Gable, WWE & FOX On The SmackDown Roster, New SmackDown Intro And Dark Match

By Marc Middleton

- Chad Gable is no more. The new Shorty G name for Gable was made official on tonight's WWE SmackDown. Gable recently started using "Shorty Gable" and was billed as that at one point, but tonight he officially shortened the name and embraced the change in a promo after his singles win over Curtis Axel. You can see footage from the match and Shorty G's post-match interview with Kayla Braxton above.

It looks like the Shorty G storyline has been planned for a few months. We first revealed back in mid-July that WWE had filed to trademark the "Shorty G" name. Gable could be headed for big things on the blue brand as it was recently reported that Vince McMahon saw Gable's current run as a push, despite the focus on height jokes and his King of the Ring tournament loss to King Baron Corbin.

As noted, Shorty G has been added to Team Hogan at WWE Crown Jewel on October 31. Shorty will team with Captain Roman Reigns, Rusev, Ali and Ricochet to face Team Flair, which will consist of Corbin, Captain Randy Orton, WWE Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Lashley, and one more Superstar to be announced soon. WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan will be at ringside to lead the teams.

- The dark match before tonight's WWE SmackDown at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana saw Apollo Crews defeat Kalisto. According to a correspondent in attendance, both Superstars played the babyface role but Kalisto was much more open about it, and was very open with the younger fans in attendance. Our correspondent noted that Crews didn't show much emotion at all.

- A new intro video premiered for SmackDown on this week's episode, featuring the new blue brand roster coming out of the 2019 WWE Draft. You can see the new intro below.

On a related note, the WWE on FOX and the main WWE Twitter accounts both touted the current blue brand roster during tonight's SmackDown episode. You can see their tweets with the roster below.

The WWE account wrote, "Team Blue's looking pretty good, if we say so ourselves... #SmackDown"

The WWE FOX account added, "S-T-A-C-K-E-D."

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