{"id":106293,"date":"2021-12-17T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=106293"},"modified":"2021-12-17T09:23:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T14:23:11","slug":"preview-wwe-smackdown-roman-reigns-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/12\/17\/preview-wwe-smackdown-roman-reigns-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: WWE SmackDown (12\/17\/21) \u2013 Roman Reigns Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WWE<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Friday Night SmackDown<\/strong> returns to Chicago, Illinois! Speaking of returns, tonight&#8217;s show is being billed as the return of the Tribal Chief, <strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong>, who had been off of television for the past couple of weeks. Whereas no other segments have been officially announced, we can take a guess at one or two which might be set to take place when SmackDown airs live from the All-State Arena tonight. Let&#8217;s take a look at what&#8217;s on offer.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roman Reigns returns with drama surrounding Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oNDNXVNeS50?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Lord of the Wrestling Rings: Return of the Tribal Chief<\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_104546\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104546\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-104546 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/11\/Roman-Reigns-wins-at-TTTT.jpg\" alt=\"Roman Reigns Returns Tonight\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/11\/Roman-Reigns-wins-at-TTTT.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/11\/Roman-Reigns-wins-at-TTTT-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-104546\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Tonight&#8217;s show is being billed as the return of Roman Reigns. As we all know, he has been locked in a feud with <strong>Brock Lesnar<\/strong> for the past few months (and for much of the past decade, to be honest) and the added story element of <strong>Paul Heyman<\/strong> and where his allegiance <em>truly<\/em> lies has made this feud one of the more compelling in WWE&#8217;s recent memory. The dynamic of Roman Reigns as the dominant heel &#8211; complete with <strong>Bloodline<\/strong> faction (and a now two year long undefeated streak) &#8211; and Brock Lesnar as the challenging babyface has created an almost parallel universe type feeling, given their previous feuds with the roles so diametrically reversed. With tonight&#8217;s SmackDown being the final live show of the year, and with Lesnar set to appear on the show, we can expect one final confrontation ahead of<em><strong> Day 1<\/strong><\/em> in the New Year. Roman will not be too pleased about Heyman&#8217;s actions last week and <strong>Sami Zayn<\/strong> is probably going to be beaten up again. It&#8217;s all fun, fun, fun.<\/p>\n<h3>Not Announced But Expected for SmackDown<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Charlotte Flair<\/strong> was defeated by <strong>Toni Storm<\/strong> last week, albeit by disqualification. This likely means that Storm has earned a title shot, presumed to take place at<em> Day 1<\/em>. We should find out if and when this title match will take place tonight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Drew McIntyre<\/strong> will continue his feud with <strong>Happy Corbin<\/strong> and <strong>Madcap Moss<\/strong> this week. With the duo having last week stolen Drew&#8217;s ancestral sword, Angela, we can expect a vengeful Scot looking to reclaim that this week. If you have watched Game of Thrones, you might recall that the Stark ancestral sword, Ice, was melted down and forged into two new swords for the Lannisters &#8211; and never returned to the Starks. Drew needs to get that thing back <em>fast<\/em>. But then, if you&#8217;re like <strong>Adam Page<\/strong> (and many others), the deep-seeded disappointment in Game of Thrones will probably leave you not caring about all this sword stuff and we can&#8217;t blame you. Roman Reigns returns, Flair and Storm feud and Drew McIntyre seeks revenge on SmackDown, live on FOX tonight!<\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WWE&#8216;s Friday Night SmackDown returns to Chicago, Illinois! Speaking of returns, tonight&#8217;s show is being billed as the return of the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns, who had been off of television for the past couple of weeks. Whereas no other segments have been officially announced, we can take a guess at one or two which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2482,"featured_media":106295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[57,403,686,8174,8175,256,77,106,598],"class_list":["post-106293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-brock-lesnar","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-happy-corbin","tag-madcap-moss","tag-paul-heyman","tag-roman-reigns","tag-sami-zayn","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Niklas George","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}