Before the exciting Royal Rumble takes place, this Saturday, all the finals builds towards the show will be gathered on WWE Smackdown. As always, Universal Champion Roman Reigns remains the headliner as he will be confronting his current challenger before their title match bout.
Raw Superstar Big E will be in the house as he teams up with his New Day buddy Kofi Kingston to take on Madcap Moss and Happy Corbin in a tag team match. Also, Naomi gets a chance to seek redemption against WWE Official Sonya Deville as the two squares off in a singles competition when WWE Smackdown airs from the T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.
Seth Rollins has the advantage heading into the Royal Rumble title match against Roman Reigns. Not only the stats are highly favoring him but Reigns- right-hand men, WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos are also banned to appear at ringside during the WWE Universal Title match at The Rumble.
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Last week’s WWE Smackdown main event saw Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins defeat The Usos in a non-title match, by disqualification after WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns arrived at the ring and knocked out Rollins with a superman punch. Per the stipulation, The Usos are now banned for this Saturday’s title match between Rollins and Reigns.
If Rollins would have lost the tag team match, last week then he had to forfeit his title shot at The Rumble but that’s not the case. The Messiah has the advantage and he is also volunteering on making another WWE Smackdown appearance, this week. The challenger has also promised to deliver a statement to The Tribal Chief.
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WWE Smackdown Preview (28/01/22): Naomi vs. Sonya Deville
WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair competed against Naomi in a Championship Contender’s match. But Sonya Deville acted as the referee and forcefully handed the win to Flair. Thus the feud between Naomi and Deville continued.
The week prior Flair also defeated Naomi due to interference by Sonya Deville. Naomi initially won the match by count-out, but Deville converted it to a No Count Out match, and then into a No DQ match allowing Flair to capitalize on the distractions for the win. As a result, Adam Pearce booked Naomi for a match against Deville to stop the unfair practices by the latter name.
In another match booked for WWE Smackdown, Big E will provide backup to Kofi Kingston as they team up against Madcap Moss and Happy Corbin in a tag match. This will mark the second consecutive appearance for E on the blue brand. Last week, he helped Kofi to get a singles victory over Moss.
According to PWInsider, Xavier Woods is scheduled to return to TV on WWE SmackDown, this week and it should happen during this matchup where The New Day will be reunited. But the source also stated that Xavier is yet to be cleared to wrestle and hence he will miss the Men’s Royal Rumble match.
The source also noted that four NXT Superstars will be present during WWE Smackdown taping and the names are Io Shirai, Dakota Kai, LA Knight, and Roderick Strong. It is likely that they will be present in the house to wrestle in dark matches because at least a couple of them should be arriving at the WWE main roster in due course.