We expected to get a massive fallout on the Smackdown Live show from the last PPV of the year 2017, Clash of Champions. All the champions looked forward with their title in hand leaving the past rivalries behind.
Also, the angle between the Smackdown authorities was also taken ahead on the night hosted by the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Smackdown Live kicked off with Daniel Bryan addressing the Royal Rumble announcements from WWE Raw and the fallout from Clash of Champions. It led Shane McMahon to come out and have a confrontation. The GM pointed out that Shane should not turn into his father continuing his vendetta. The commissioner left the ring wishing Bryan luck for the show.
Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable got a match against The Usos. It was a back and forth going between these two teams in the opening contest. The champions digested a loss to the challengers with a double takedown. The crowd remained reactionless for the most of the match.
Charlotte Flair was in the ring to note on the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble Match. She intended to defend her title at Wrestlemania against whoever wins the Rumble match. Naomi interrupted her to declare that she would be entering the match and win it to face Flair at the biggest stage. The Riott Squad interrupted them to set up a match.
As per the proposal from Naomi, two of the Riott Squad, Ruby Riott, and Sarah Logan faced the team of Naomi and Charlotte. Liv Morgan stayed outside the ring to provide the distraction to the babyfaces but accidentally hit Logan. Naomi capitalised on this by hitting the rear-view on Logan to pick up the pinfall.
Dolph Ziggler cut a promo with the newly championship by his side. He went on to illustrate his achievements from the WWE career. Several video packages were shown on the Tron after which the show-off claimed that the crowd does not deserve to see him, as the champion, as he is too damn good. He left the ring, after that.
The New Day had a matchup with Rusev and Aiden English with the Christmas theme being intact. They delivered an entertaining match with pancakes all around the ring. English ate these pancake into his face and ran into a flying elbow from Xavier Woods to suffer the pinfall loss.
The main event of Smackdown Live featured AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura teaming up against Jinder Mahal, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Mahal evaded an early RKO, but the Singh Brothers were downed with a double DDT from Orton. Nakamura connected with a Kinshasa to pin Zayn for the win. The babyfaces celebrated to end this edition of Smackdown Live.