The final show before the Royal Rumble went down in Saudi Arabia as WWE had SmackDown emanate from Riyadh.
Let’s get into the results:
United States title Open Challenge: Carmelo Hayes (c) def. Rey Fenix
Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss def. The Judgement Day (Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez)
Axiom def. Johnny Gargano (and wins his mask back)
Ilja Dragunov def. The Miz
Sami Zayn, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso def. The Vision via DQ
Notes:
Jade Cargill attacked Jordynne Grace backstage.
A graphic accidentally flashed seemingly showing Bron Breakker is the first entrant into the men’s Royal Rumble tomorrow.
Damien Priest got his Royal Rumble number and he didn’t seem over the moon with it.
Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss did a fair amount of debating over the Royal Rumble.
Drew McIntyre interferred in the main event, very predictably.
Bron Breakker stood tall to close the show after Spearing both Zayn and Rhodes will they held McIntyre’s title.
AJ Styles and Gunther had an intense promo battle before the big match tomorrow.
Analysis
Sad to say, I think AJ Styles is really going to retire. WWE played a lot into that last week with making him wrestle overtime, but I think the whole playing up to what he is planning to do for the rest of the year makes it fairly obvious it’s all lined up for Gunther to get some more super heat.
You don’t have Gunther become the career killer and dispatch of Goldberg and John Cena just to stop now, at a Saudi Arabian Royal Rumble, do you? AJ Styles has been begging to retire – I think it’s over. Great segment, though, and I’m sure the match will be too.
WWE has done well to position the Royal Rumble as anyone’s game and the fields are stacked. There is a slight worry there won’t be too many surprises, but one assumes Chris Jericho will certainly be one.
It was a decent SmackDown, but nothing special. The hot Saudi crowd actually added a lot to it; we’ve come a long way from those first Saudi shows!
