Just hours away from Wrestlemania 38, WWE Smackdown will present the go-home edition, this week with two big matches on the card. Wrestlemania Smackdown will see the annual Andre the Giant Battle Royal as the potential main event of the night. Plus, the Intercontinental Championship will also be on the line in a Triple Threat on the show that airs from American Airlines in Dallas, Texas.
Ongoing feuds from WWE Smackdown targeting Wrestlemania 38 card have already been hyped up on this week’s Raw. Both the WWE Champion and Universal Champion were there to cut separate promos and prove their point to become the very first unified WWE Universal Champion once the Show of Shows, gets over.
WWE Smackdown Champion Charlotte Flair and her challenger Ronda Rousey weren’t booked on Raw but they’re likely to appear, tonight to have one final confrontation before their mega title match, this Saturday. Also, Drew McIntyre may seek redemption against Happy Corbin after suffering an unprecedented attack on Raw by the heel superstar.
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Apart from these two top storylines, WWE has announced the 8th Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal for WWE Smackdown which is also being dubbed WrestleMania SmackDown. The announcement came last Friday night to hype things up and thereby kick off the Wrestlemania weekend in Dallas.
WWE has named 17 participants for the match, so far – Apollo Crews, Commander Azeez, Erik, Ivar, Damian Priest, Shelton Benjamin, Cedric Alexander, Akira Tozawa, Drew Gulak, Reggie, Jinder Mahal, Shanky, R-Truth, Mansoor, Madcap Moss, Robert Roode, and WWE United States Champion Finn Balor.
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For a second straight year, Andre Battle Royal will be aired on the WWE Smackdown, a night before WrestleMania. Previous winners for Andre the Giant Battle Royal are Cesaro in 2014, Big Show in 2015, Happy Baron Corbin in 2016, Mojo Rawley in 2017, Matt Hardy in 2018, Braun Strowman in 2019, and SmackDown Tag Team Champion Jey Uso in 2021.
Interestingly, WWE United States Champion Finn Balor has been added to the battle royal. He was reportedly planning to defend against Priest at Wrestlemania but the confirmation is yet to arrive. It’s still possible that their involvement could lead to a singles match for the title at the Show of Shows.
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This week’s WWE SmackDown will also feature a Triple Threat for the WWE Intercontinental Title where the champion Ricochet will defend against Angel and Humberto of Los Lotharios.
Last week, Angel defeated Ricochet in a Championship Contender’s match, due to a distraction from Humberto. Ricochet then challenged Humberto to a match to get some payback, but this time, Angel helped his cousin win in the other Championship Contender’s match by count-out. Ricochet went to Adam Pearce and requested this Triple Threat title defense which was later added to WWE SmackDown before WrestleMania.
As of this writing, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns are also being advertised for WWE SmackDown, but they have not been officially booked to appear on TV.