Bengaluru, January 8: Raw Legends Night set the tone right for Royal Rumble 2021 indicating a mammoth showdown in the pipeline and now it's Friday Night SmackDown's turn to come up with their announcements for the upcoming PPV as they deliver the second episode of the New Year.

Announced for tonight, two championships - Intercontinental Championship and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, will be on the line when this week's episode comes live from the Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, Florida.

After Roman Reigns retained his Universal Championship against Kevin Owens in controversial fashion on the Christmas day episode, KO revealed how The Head of the Table always needs Jey Uso to keep the title around his waist. So, he challenged Jey in a "Main Event" match and eventually picked up the win via a Stunner.

That wasn’t obviously the end of the story as the Prizefighter wanted Roman Reigns on the spot and hence rained down more Stunners and Superkicks on Uso. The Tribal Chief finally showed up from behind and unleashed a two-on-one attack on Owens.

Reigns sent his adversary off a ledge to send him crashing down through a table, causing an injury. We’re likely to receive an update on KO, but it's pretty clear that he'll still be ready to 'die trying' to take the Universal Title off Reigns.



On the New Year episode of SmackDown, the Intercontinental Champion Big E joined forces with Apollo Crews to overcome the tandem of Sami Zayn and King Corbin with a clean win. Now, E is eager to prove himself as a fighting champion. So rather than sit back and wait for a challenger, he looked forward to issuing an open challenge.

Crews snatched the opportunity and accepted it, making sure an Intercontinental Championship match goes down this week, marking the first title defense for the champion.

An absolutely brutal chair assault by Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode ruined the Smoke-tacular celebration thrown by SmackDown Tag Team Champions - The Street Profits.

Later, it was announced on Talking Smack that the champions will once again put their illustrious titles on the line against The Showoff and his "Glorious" partner. The challengers will have an additional advantage as Montez Ford is dealing with a bruised knee from the attack.

In an explosive tag team showdown, SmackDown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks once again was paired with Bianca Belair against Bayley and Carmella.

Bianca and Bayley were busy settling their differences outside the ring when Reginald got himself involved in the action. Carmella used the distraction to plant Banks face-first into the canvas with the Mella-buster for a pinfall win.

It’s pretty clear that The Untouchable One never left the intentions of becoming a two-time champion ever since returning with this new heel attitude. A submission loss at TLC didn't crack down her mentality, at all.

Now that she has secured a clean pin over the SmackDown Women's Champion, it's evident that she’s getting another title opportunity, perhaps at Royal Rumble. To know more about the situation we have to keep an eye on tonight's show from the ThunderDome.