{"id":151487,"date":"2026-01-24T03:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=151487"},"modified":"2026-01-25T09:32:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T14:32:43","slug":"snme-wwe-championship-number-one-contender-match-participants-clash-on-1-23-smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/01\/24\/snme-wwe-championship-number-one-contender-match-participants-clash-on-1-23-smackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"SNME WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Match Participants Clash on 1\/23 SmackDown"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Saturday Night’s Main Event<\/a> on January 24, 2026, four men will compete in a fatal four-way match for the Undisputed WWE Championship against title holder, Drew McIntyre. The winner between Damian Priest, Randy Orton, Sami Zayn, and Trick Williams will face the champ at the Royal Rumble next Saturday.<\/p>\n

They each qualified through qualifying matches held last Friday on the January 16 episode of Friday Night SmackDown. Orton beat The Miz, Priest beat Solo Sikoa, Williams beat Matt Cardona, and Zayn beat Ilja Dragunov.<\/p>\n

Each of the four men definitely earned their shot at facing McIntyre next Saturday. With tensions running high between the four men, they confronted each other one last time with less than 24 hours until their match<\/a>. Would they keep things civil, given the prize and potential glory ahead of them, or would things break down?<\/p>\n

The Upcoming Battle Leads to Chaos Between Priest, Williams, and Zayn<\/h2>\n

Going into Saturday’s match, all four men thought they should be the one facing Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble for good reason. Orton would be one step closer to breaking Cena’s title record. Priest would get another championship reign. Williams would instantly become a star on Friday nights. Zayn would punch his Royal Rumble ticket in his hometown of Montreal. The January 23 SmackDown was a chaotic one for all four men. Zayn opened the show<\/a> in a Montreal homecoming.<\/p>\n

But Williams quickly interrupted, reminding him that he lost a title match in his home city. Zayn told him that they are on different levels at the moment. In response, Williams said he had a match in the main event with Priest. At the mention of his name, Priest came out to confront Williams. They interacted last week, with nothing happening, leading Priest to think he was afraid of him.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In response, Williams punched Zayn, setting off a giant brawl between the three of them. He slid out of the ring, escaping major damage before his match. During their fight<\/a>, Williams threw Priest into Zayn, who was watching on the outside. Zayn was rightfully furious and attacked Williams, forcing a disqualification and a Priest escape from the ring. Williams stood tall, but the victory came with a price. Orton arrived<\/a> at the arena and gave him an RKO.<\/p>\n

Zayn stood face-to-face with Orton, though it was unclear whether they were fighting or he was complimenting him on the RKO. But then Orton gave Zayn an RKO of his own, with the Viper standing tall with no opposition. Could this be a preview of what happens on Saturday night, or could one of the other three men face McIntyre at the Royal Rumble?<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/b><\/strong><\/amp-ad><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0<\/span>Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/span><\/a><\/u>\u00a0for more on the WWE SmackDown results 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 as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/span><\/em><\/amp-ad><\/amp-fx-flying-carpet><\/amp-ad><\/p>\n

You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<\/span>Netflix<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(Raw, WWE archives, WWE Unreal, and other specials),\u00a0<\/span>USA Network<\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0The CW<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(NXT),\u00a0<\/span>ESPN\u00a0<\/span><\/a>(WWE PLEs),\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Tubi<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0A&E<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments) and\u00a0Peacock<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(Saturday Night\u2019s Main Event). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<\/span>YouTube.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Saturday Night’s Main Event on January 24, 2026, four men will compete in a fatal four-way match for the Undisputed WWE Championship against title holder, Drew McIntyre. The winner between Damian Priest, Randy Orton, Sami Zayn, and Trick Williams will face the champ at the Royal Rumble next Saturday. They each qualified through qualifying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5338,"featured_media":151180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2192,26,4,3],"tags":[6558,686,58,106,7988,9074,4996],"class_list":["post-151487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-damian-priest","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-randy-orton","tag-sami-zayn","tag-trick-williams","tag-wwe-saturday-nights-main-event","tag-wwe-undisputed-champion"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151487","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\/5338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151487"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151601,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151487\/revisions\/151601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}