5 things WWE subtly told us on SmackDown: Roman Reigns' next 2 opponents revealed, new superstar set for a major push? (November 27th, 2020)
Welcome to this week's edition of things WWE subtly told us on SmackDown! It was an interesting episode to follow up after Survivor Series and the build to TLC began in a big way.
As always, SmackDown was centered around The Tribal Chief and Universal Champion Roman Reigns. Let's get right into it:
#5 Roman Reigns' reign of terror has led to two major title contenders emerging on SmackDown
We're not sure why, but Roman Reigns seemed to have a slight change of heart on SmackDown. While he embraced Jey Uso at Survivor Series for helping him beat Drew McIntyre, he berated his cousin for doing the same just a few days later on SmackDown.
Roman Reigns berated Jey Uso to kick off SmackDown and made it clear that everyone needs to respect him. The only way to get that respect? Fear. Jey Uso assaulted Otis with a steel chair, seemingly transferring his anger towards the former Money in the Bank holder.
This also resulted in the cancelation of King Corbin vs Otis. While the latter was replaced by Murphy, the central storyline on SmackDown was the terror caused by Roman Reigns and Jey Uso doing all his bidding.
Dave Meltzer initially reported that Daniel Bryan is penciled in to be Roman Reigns' Royal Rumble opponent. Given that Bryan was seemingly behind the Intercontinental title on SmackDown, we wondered how it would play out.
Given the way it did, Daniel Bryan has been set up as a future contender for the Universal title - but we'll get back to that later. One name who also emerged is Kevin Owens - who stopped Jey Uso from attacking Daniel Bryan and would face him in the main event of SmackDown.
Kevin Owens only won by disqualification, but he got the last laugh on the night and looked straight at the camera - directing a message towards Universal Champion Roman Reigns. It's clear that Kevin Owens will be Roman Reigns' immediate title challenger, presumably for TLC.
It'll be an interesting feud to see play out on SmackDown. We've seen them have a rivalry with the roles entirely reversed in 2016 (and early 2017) - with Roman Reigns as the babyface challenger and Kevin Owens as the Universal Champion.
Kevin Owens came out on top on that occasion, but we don't expect the same to happen this time around.