Despite being an exclusive property on the Raw brand, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship will be defended on a Smackdown event within a few weeks. This comes straight after several Smackdown Superstars were allowed to participate in the tournament to crown a new champion in the first place. It also shows how thin the WWE roster is despite the much-touted 2023 edition of Draft.
WWE will return to Madison Square Garden for the July 7 episode of SmackDown. Top names to the lineup are being advertised to make it a stacked night as WWE heads to Summerslam 2023 from that night onward. It appears that a World Heavyweight Championship match would go down in one of the headliners of the evening.
Young WWE NXT Talent Made History At Latest June 6 Episode Tapings
The fans in attendance at MSG will be treated to a dark match featuring two WWE Raw superstars as Damian Priest will challenge Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship. While this hasn’t been confirmed as a dark match but having two red brand stars on a blue brand show seemingly confirms that they will be competing in a non-televised match.
WWE NXT: World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins Gets New Challenger
World Heavyweight Championship to be defended across Raw and Smackdown
Seth Rollins won the World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions by defeating AJ Styles in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Then, he’d gone through his first televised title defense this past Monday on Raw. Eventually, he defeated Damian Priest in his first title defense and then faced off with Finn Balor to indicate his first championship feud around Money in the Bank.
As mentioned above, the Draft didn’t necessarily prohibit superstars from crossing over between Raw and Smackdown. In fact, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship could be defended this week as Seth Rollins is also set to appear at this Friday’s SmackDown taping, which will be emanating in his home state of Iowa.
Apart from the World Heavyweight Championship match for the MSG show, WWE previously revealed that Universal Champion Roman Reigns will be attending the July 7 episode of SmackDown. This falls under his limited summer tour dates on the road to SummerSlam 2023. Madison Square Garden’s official website is advertising Bianca Belair, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, The Usos, Solo Sikoa, AJ Styles, Asuka, Austin Theory, and more for the upcoming night.
