WWE champion calls out tag team partner following surprise appearance

A WWE champion called out his tag team partner today for making a surprise appearance without him. The star in question competed against World Heavyweight Champion Gunther this past Friday night on WWE SmackDown.

Nathan Frazer and Axiom are the reigning NXT Tag Team Champions, and the duo are known as Fraxiom. Axiom made a surprise appearance on this past Friday's episode of SmackDown in his home country of Spain and battled Gunther. The Ring General picked up the victory in a hard-fought match and then choked Axiom out after the bell.

Axiom took to social media today to share a screenshot from WWE 2K25 in which a fictional version of Nathan Frazer asked SmackDown GM Nick Aldis for a match against his tag team partner. The champion noted that the real Frazer would never do such a thing.

Frazer reacted with a hilarious message and noted that he wished he could say the same about Axiom, but he was unaware that he would be on SmackDown this past Friday night.

"I laughed at this until I realized you literally had a match on Smackdown against the world champion behind my back," he wrote.

Gunther will be defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Men's Royal Rumble winner Jey Uso at WrestleMania 41.

Vince Russo reacts to Axiom's match on WWE SmackDown

Former WWE writer Vince Russo was not a fan of Axiom's match on SmackDown and complained about Gunther having to sell for him.

Speaking on the latest edition of Sportskeeda Wrestling's BroDown show, the veteran stated that the World Heavyweight Champion should have refused to take any offense from the NXT star. Russo added that the leader of Imperium should have refused to participate in the match on SmackDown.

"Freaking Gunther cannot be selling to some jabrone because he’s from Spain. Gunther is the one that’s gotta say, ‘Guys, I am the World Champion, I am getting ready to go to WrestleMania, you want me to sell for a guy that nobody knows. He’s half my size. Because he is Spanish and we’re in Barcelona?’ He’s got to say, 'No, I am not doing that," said Russo. [From 39:18 onwards]

You can check out the video below:

The Hardy Boyz successfully defended the TNA Tag Team Championship against Fraxiom last week on NXT. It will be interesting to see how long the duo can hold onto the NXT Tag Team Championship moving forward on WWE television.