What's the story?
As noted by Wrestlezone, the fans in attendance for tonight's episode of SmackDown Live got to witness a huge title match after the cameras stopped rolling at the Huntington Center.
After the airing of 205 Live on WWE Network, AJ Styles defended his WWE Championship against his opponent for Royal Rumble, John Cena, in a dark match main event.
At the end, Styles managed to retain his championship but lost to Cena. He lost by disqualification after hitting Cena with a low blow
In case you didn't know...
John Cena returned to WWE during the December 27th episode of SmackDown Live.
Cutting a promo on the show, he announced that he will be challenging the WWE World Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles for his title at the upcoming Royal Rumble PPV.
The heart of the matter
Recently, there have been reports of WWE officials being worried about 205 Live due to its low viewership and people leaving the arena after SmackDown Live.
Also read: WWE Rumors: John Cena to win the WWE World Championship at the Royal Rumble
Therefore, it's possible that they set up such a huge dark main event to keep the fans in the arena glued through the shooting of the cruiserweight exclusive show, so they can later watch the rare championship main event.
Here is a video of the full match
What's next?
After the SmackDown general manager Daniel Bryan made it official, AJ Styles was scheduled to defend his championship against John Cena at the upcoming Royal Rumble PPV.
There have been lots of talks about the possible outcome of their match. Earlier, it was believed that Cena would beat Styles and win the WWE Championship at the event, leading to a match between him and Undertaker at WrestleMania 33.
But now, since Undertaker is rumoured to face a Raw superstar at Mania instead, many believe that WWE will hold off Cena's 16th world title win till WrestleMania.
Sportskeeda's take:
There is no doubt that John Cena still has at least one title reign left in him and that he would get his hands on his 16th world title sooner or later. However, it would be interesting to see how WWE pull this off considering all the negative fan reactions which would come along with Cena's victory.
Here’s a video of the televised confrontation between John Cena and AJ Styles on Smackdown:
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