During last night's episode of SmackDown, the masked man who has spent weeks attacking The Vision was finally revealed. However, no one actually knew who the guy was!
Well, we can now confirm that it's Don Furio, an independent professional wrestler who, according to his Facebook page, trained at Seth Rollins' Black and Brave Wrestling Academy. That connection obviously seems somewhat meaningful, but if the big reveal is that The Vision's former leader has enlisted an old student to do his dirty work.
Billing himself on Instagram as "The Magnificent Don Furio" and "Italian Steel," Furio's bio confirms he also trained at Cody Rhodes' Nightmare Factory.
Austin Theory was the original masked man, but after Rollins was expelled from his faction, a new version showed up at the Royal Rumble. He attacked Bron Breakker during his entrance, leading to Oba Femi immediately eliminating him from the 30-man match.
Since then, Furio has been targeting Logan Paul, Theory, and the recently injured Bronson Reed.
It does rather feel like this could be a misdirect, and we wouldn't be surprised if there are more twists to come. Either way, fans have been quick to express their disappointment and frustration with the big reveal.
During a recent interview, Rollins was asked point-blank about being healed up in time for WrestleMania, and replied, "I wish I had a solid answer for you, but I am going to have to plead the fifth. I don’t know. The end of the day is I want to be back for WrestleMania, but it’s not up to me. It’s up to the doctors, they gotta tell me if I’m gonna be good to go."
The entire original Vision faction—Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed—are all injured. All that's left is Logan Paul, Austin Theory, manager Paul Heyman, and, to a much lesser extent, Brock Lesnar (though Monday's RAW seemed to establish that The Beast is not "officially" affiliated with them).
Here are some highlights from last night's SmackDown.