5 things that could happen on SmackDown Live next week

It wasn’t as strong a show as last week, but SmackDown Live this week was a solid episode with some good follow-up to WrestleMania. It’s tough to gauge what they are going to do with the women just yet because everything is up in the air due to Ronda Rousey’s debut at the Rumble. It looks like Ruby Riott may be Charlotte’s challenger at Fastlane and one would assume that if Rousey takes on one of the champions at WrestleMania it will probably be Charlotte. Elsewhere, Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon are still not fighting -- maybe they’re going to give up on that storyline.

It created some fine drama for a few months, but I honestly would not mind if they just dropped it. The inevitable split between Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens was started in earnest, and Rusev earned a shot at the US Title next week. Like always, it was a quick 2 hours, and it was easy viewing.

- Charlotte cuts a promo on Ronda Rousey

Charlotte did indeed get promo time on the show and mentioned Rousey and Asuka, but it wasn’t really a pointed promo as much as just some face time for the champion and a way to set up her next challenger before WrestleMania. I thought the Rousey stuff would be more clear-cut, but apparently, we’re probably going to have to wait until March to know what her status will be.

- Gable and Benjamin defend and retain their titles in a rematch

Surprisingly, The Usos retained their titles in 2 straight falls at the Rumble PPV. The match had an amazing first fall and an extremely short, disappointing second fall that ended awkwardly and abruptly. That was weird. In any event, The Usos cut a great promo about how nobody can beat them and when they finished their promo, the Bludgeon Brothers entered the arena for their match. With Jimmy and Jey specifically using the word “brothers” when saying that nobody could beat them, followed by the way the Bludgeon Brothers arrived, it looks like we have The Usos’ next challengers. Gable and Benjamin picked up an easy win on Breezango.

- Extremely disappointing women’s action

I’m not going to call it extremely disappointing, but the women only got one segment and no match. It’s very annoying that there’s so little going on with the rest of the talented women that it’s just one giant insult. I did like the Money in the Bank tease, so there was that. I feel like Carmella isn’t going to win the title.

- Jinder Mahal is announced as Bobby Roode’s first US Title challenger

Jinder did indeed get a shot to challenge Roode, but he was unable to win the fatal four way and will not be Roode’s next challenger. Instead, it will be Rusev, who will get his shot next week. I had Rusev pegged as Roode’s challenger for WrestleMania. That still may happen, though, because WM is still quite some time away.

- Nakamura and AJ Styles face off but Orton interrupts

Surprisingly, there was no Randy Orton at all this week. There’s no clear path at all for him this year leading into WrestleMania. Nakamura and Styles teamed up to defeat Sami and Kevin, who will be facing each other for a shot at Styles and the WWE Title at Fastlane in March. Oh god… we’re going to end up getting Orton vs. Baron Corbin at WrestleMania. Ew.

Overall, I went 1 for 5, as I’m going to count Charlotte’s promo as half a point, and the disappointing women’s segment as half a point as well. How about next week?

#5 Charlotte vs. Sarah Logan

Sarah Logan attacks Charlotte Flair with a knee drop

After Ruby Riott and the Riott Squad attacked Charlotte this week and seemingly staked their claim for the next shot at the Women’s Title, Charlotte will likely be tasked with going through the Riott Squad before taking on Ruby herself.

With 5 episodes of SmackDown before the Fastlane PPV, I wonder if they will do the title match beforehand and maybe do a multi-woman title match on the PPV, but we’ll see what happens. I do think, though, that based on this week’s events we will see Sarah Logan next week and Liv Morgan the following week.

Or another 6-woman tag match, because why do anything even slightly different?

#4 Bobby Roode retains his US Title thanks to Jinder Mahal

Rusev kicks Jinder's head off en route to earning a US Title match

After failing to earn a shot at the US Title in the four-way match, Jinder Mahal will not be happy and will do anything he can to keep himself in the title picture.

That means ruining the match between Roode and Rusev. He may do so before the match even begins, or he may ruin it after the two men have a fairly long, good contest.

Either way, I expect Mahal to ruin things, and probably set up Jinder vs. Rusev at Fastlane for a shot at Bobby Roode at WrestleMania, or a triple threat where Roode pins Jinder, thus leading to Rusev vs. Roode at WrestleMania.

#3 Dolph Ziggler explains why he returned at the Royal Rumble

Dolph Ziggler had a superkick party at the Royal Rumble before being eliminated

I was perplexed that Dolph Ziggler didn’t appear on either RAW or SmackDown this week. He made his return to WWE at the #30 spot in the Royal Rumble match and only lasted a few minutes before being eliminated with very little fanfare.

It was an expected return with an unexpected outcome. Nobody really thought he had a chance to win the Rumble match but there was anticipation that something would happen that would give us some indication as to what he would do next, but… we got nothing. He showed up, got eliminated, and was gone.

There’s no room for him in the WWE Title picture and it doesn’t make any sense for him to go for the United States Title again. I think WWE wanted him to be a surprise (?) entrant in the Rumble but had no plans past that, which is why he didn’t appear this week.

Maybe he will start some kind of redemption story and apologize for the way he has been acting and decide that he’s going to start at the bottom and try to work his way back up the ranks. It could end up tying into the new Top 10 thing that Daniel Bryan announced this week, as he gains the trust of the other wrestlers, he may get votes and place on the list. I know that I’m all for Ziggler getting one last shot at being the great babyface we know he can be.

#2 Gable and Benjamin defeat The Ascension

Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable gained some momentum with a win this week over Breezango

In a continuation of the events of this week’s episode that saw them defeat Breezango, Gable and Benjamin will pick up another win in their quest to get another shot at the tag titles.

This time it will be Breezango’s “best friends” The Ascension, who probably won’t put up much more of a fight than Breeze and Fandango did. I really don’t understand what they did to get such a terrible run on the main roster.

It’s tough to say exactly where WWE is going with the SD Tag Titles, but I feel like we’re going to get a pair of multi-team matches at WrestleMania, one for each set of titles. If not, at least SmackDown’s belts will be defended in a multi-team match.

#1 Sami Zayn beats Kevin Owens to earn a WWE Title shot

Sami Zayn will battle Kevin Owens next week for a shot at the WWE Championship

With the wheels in motion for a complete split between Owens and Zayn, which is rumored to be leading to a contest between the two men at WrestleMania, I think it makes sense that Sami Zayn will win the title shot to face AJ Styles at Fastlane.

It will drive Owens even crazier, and sooner than later he’ll attack Sami just like he did Chris Jericho. Sami will realize that just like he did in the past, he let Kevin Owens get into his head and make him think they were friends again, but he was just being used by Owens to try to get himself back into the WWE Title picture.

Zayn will go back to being a great sympathetic babyface, hopefully with a higher profile than he had before.

I think Sami will beat Kevin at WrestleMania, too, and at the Payback PPV in May, we could see a rematch from Takeover: Dallas, except instead of being Sami’s NXT farewell and Nakamura’s NXT debut, it would be for the WWE Championship.