The last episode of Smackdown Live before the Battleground PPV was already hyped up with the intimidating presence of the Punjabi Prison. This was brought to the arena in order to give us a preview of Sunday Night’s WWE Championship match. The hype up for the show was already made around this. Here are the full results from the show hosted at the Legacy Arena, BJCC in Birmingham, Alabama.
Smackdown kicked off with the WWE Champion standing in the middle of the ring alongside the Singh Brothers as the Punjabi Prison gets lowered. They cut a heel promo bragging about the fact that this will seal Orton’s fate on Sunday. The Viper arrived soon on the show stating that Jinder can’t handle the pressure of 1.3 billion people of India. So, he will fall down, for sure.
Jimmy Uso got a singles contest against Kofi Kingston. The New Day and Jey Uso were there to start a chaos at the ringside. This allowed Jimmy to capitalise on the high flying superstar. So, he picked up an easy win via a roll up.
In the women’s division, almost everyone wanted to face Lana. The commissioner instead made a match between Charlotte and Becky Lynch. The latter one picked up the win after locking in the armbar on the Queen who tapped out.
Following the match, Lana, Natalya, and Tamina showed up in the ring and started to brawl. Tamina protected Lana for some unknown reason putting all other three women down. At backstage, Naomi commented on the situation stating that she can’t find out who her next challenge is going to be.
Chad Gable addressed his situation on Smackdown Live now that his partner Jason Jordan has moved to Raw. He was completely shocked by the move. But, from now onwards, people will get to see his solo transformation on the show.
John Cena appeared to cut a promo on his Battleground match against Rusev on Sunday. During the end, the Bulgarian Brute showed up and delivered a sneak attack the Cenation Leader. Cena tried to fight back but Rusev locked in the accolade with full force to pass him out.
Mike Kanellis had his debut match on Smackdown against Sami Zayn after weeks of confrontations between them. Sami was on the verge to pick up the win via an exploder suplex but Maria saved his husband. The distraction allowed Mike to connect with a Samoan Driver and pick up the win.
The main event of the night witnessed a tag team match between the team of AJ Styles and Nakamura against Kevin Owens and Baron Corbin. The latter one tried to deliver yet another attack on the Artist during his entrance but this time he was not successful.
The heels, however, managed to pull off a huge victory after Owens countered a Styles Clash and converted it into a superkick following with a pop-up powerbomb of his own. This earned him and Corbin to close the night on a winning note.