{"id":108329,"date":"2022-01-14T14:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T19:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=108329"},"modified":"2022-01-14T14:30:34","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T19:30:34","slug":"rollins-reigns-wwe-smackdown-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/01\/14\/rollins-reigns-wwe-smackdown-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: WWE SmackDown (1\/14\/22) \u2013 Rollins and Reigns Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The road to the <strong><em>Royal Rumble<\/em><\/strong>, and by proxy WrestleMania, becomes clearer as we head into <strong><em>Friday Night SmackDown<\/em><\/strong>. There are a few key items scheduled, including a meeting between <strong>Seth Rollins<\/strong> and <strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong> on <em>WWE SmackDown<\/em>. We will also see the blue brand return of one of the trailblazers of the WWE women&#8217;s division. This isn&#8217;t to say that the show will be devoid of in-ring action, either. All of this, and more, will take on <em>SmackDown<\/em> on FOX. Here&#8217;s what to know prior to the show.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Friday Night SmackDown Card (1\/14\/22)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Roman Reigns Comes Face-to-Face With Seth Rollins<\/li>\n<li>Lita Returns to SmackDown for First Time in Nearly 20 Years<\/li>\n<li>Sami Zayn Debuts &#8220;InZayn&#8221; Stunt Show<\/li>\n<li>Aliyah (SmackDown Debut Match) vs. Natalya<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-full wp-image-108335 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/lita-smackdown-return.jpg\" alt=\"Lita Returns\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/lita-smackdown-return.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/lita-smackdown-return-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Lita Returns to the Blue Brand<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>On last week&#8217;s <em>SmackDown<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/01\/07\/mickie-james-summer-rae-2022-royal-rumble\/\" target=\"_self\">several competitors were announced<\/a> for the <strong><em>Women&#8217;s Royal Rumble<\/em><\/strong>. Among the names announced was WWE Hall of Famer <strong>Lita<\/strong>, who will be making her return to the blue brand this week. It has been nearly 20 years since Lita has been on <em>SmackDown<\/em> and it&#8217;s easy to see why her appearance has been hyped. In addition to being one of the trailblazing figures of women&#8217;s wrestling, she is an accomplished wrestler from an accolade standpoint, having captured the WWE Women&#8217;s Championship on 4 occasions.<\/p>\n<p>What will Lita have to say en route to the <em>Royal Rumble<\/em> event? It&#8217;s important to note that she wasn&#8217;t the only veteran competitor announced for this year&#8217;s <em>Women&#8217;s Royal Rumble<\/em>, either. Lita will also be joined by the likes of <strong>Kelly Kelly<\/strong>, <strong>The Bella Twins<\/strong>, and current <strong>IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong> Knockouts Champion <strong>Mickie Jame<\/strong>s. Needless to say, the &#8220;Xtreme&#8221; one will have an uphill battle if she intends on overcoming 29 other women&#8217;s competitors in one of the most grueling match types in WWE. Tune into tonight&#8217;s edition of <em>SmackDown<\/em> as she addresses the WWE Universe.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"size-full wp-image-108333 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/rollins-reigns-wwe-smackdown.jpg\" alt=\"Roman Reigns Seth Rollins SmackDown\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/rollins-reigns-wwe-smackdown.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/01\/rollins-reigns-wwe-smackdown-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins Meet on SmackDown<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Finally, on this week&#8217;s <em>SmackDown<\/em>, <strong><em>Monday Night Raw&#8217;s<\/em><\/strong> <strong>Seth Rollins<\/strong> will meet with the Universal Champion, <strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong>. On last week&#8217;s show, it was revealed that Reigns will be defending his title against Rollins at this year&#8217;s <em>Royal Rumble<\/em> event. <strong>Adam Pearce<\/strong> handpicked the self-proclaimed &#8220;Drip God&#8221; as &#8220;The Tribal Chief&#8217;s&#8221; Rumble opponent and to say that it generated buzz would be an understatement. Anyone familiar with the careers of Reigns and Rollins will know that they share history, dating back to their early days on the main roster as two-thirds of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2017\/11\/19\/5-years-of-the-shield\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>The Shield<\/strong><\/a>. Since then, both men went on to become incredibly successful, winning multiple world titles in the process.<\/p>\n<p>It can be argued that both men are at interesting points in their careers. While Reigns has been the no-nonsense &#8220;Head of the Table,&#8221; ruling over <em>SmackDown<\/em> as its top champion, Rollins embraced a more obnoxious, borderline maniacal side, dressing in loud attires and being as brash as possible. Despite his villainous demeanor, Seth &#8220;Freakin'&#8221; Rollins earned a following online, largely due to said attires and curiosity stemming from what, exactly, he would don next. This week, however, it&#8217;s fair to expect that any nonsense will be kept by the wayside. What will happen when Reigns and Rollins meet face-to-face on <em>SmackDown<\/em>?<\/p>\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>The road to the Royal Rumble, and by proxy WrestleMania, becomes clearer as we head into Friday Night SmackDown. There are a few key items scheduled, including a meeting between Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns on WWE SmackDown. We will also see the blue brand return of one of the trailblazers of the WWE women&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3354,"featured_media":108333,"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":[2192,26,3],"tags":[515,239,404,77,106,76],"class_list":["post-108329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-aliyah","tag-lita","tag-natalya","tag-roman-reigns","tag-sami-zayn","tag-seth-rollins"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108329","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\/3354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}