On SmackDown this week, General Manager Daniel Bryan slipped up on live television when he accidentally referred to Apollo Crews as Apollo Creed.
This took place early on in the show, when Bryan was announcing a triple threat match between Apollo Crews, Kalisto and Baron Corbin. When he meant to say Apollo Crews, he instead said Apollo Creed, the character from the Rocky films.
Though it was a meaningless and understandable screwup, the mistake drew widespread mockery on social media, with Apollo Creed beginning to trend on Twitter shortly after. Viewers sarcastically expressed their surprise that Apollo Creed was now on the WWE roster.
Within the show itself, the mistake was not addressed at all, going by so fast that it could very easily be missed. This is the kind of mistake that can now happen on Smackdown, which used to be pretaped but went live two weeks ago after the WWE’s brand split.
Apollo Crews would go on to have the last laugh, though, as he ended up winning the match that Bryan was introducing and earning the right to challenge The Miz for the WWE Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam.