Complete SmackDown Live Taping Results – December 29, 2018 *SPOILERS*

Hopefully it’s a happy one. This last year has been quite a ride for WWE. From all of the awesome wrestling that was to be seen to some of the horrible depths that they reached, the company hit almost every point on the scale with Monday Night Raw tending to be on the lower and SmackDown Live on the higher side. There’s one show to go and it’s something that won’t be seen until next year.

WWE taped the first SmackDown Live of 2019 on Saturday night at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show will take place this coming Tuesday on January 1, 2019. This week’s episode will feature more build towards the Royal Rumble, which will take place at the end of January. Here are the results of this week’s show, courtesy of PWinsider.com by way of 411mania.com:

* The New Day kick off the show with their New Year’s Celebration. Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston all cut promos and announce their spots in the Royal Rumble match.

* Samoa Joe defeated Jeff Hardy by submission. Joe won with the Coquina Clutch. Joe earned a spot in the Fatal 5 Way main event with AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton and Mustafa Ali

* Backstage segment with AJ Styles, Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon. AJ tells Vince he will see the real AJ Styles tonight. AJ then threatens Vince, causing an intense stand-off between Shane and AJ. Shane asks Vince if he really wants to see the real AJ Styles, and Vince laughs, then replies that he does

* WWE United States Champion Rusev and Lana are out for his championship celebration. Shinsuke Nakamura attacks from behind and Lana jumps on his back. Nakamura superkicks Rusev and injures Lana in the process. Nakamura then hits Rusev with a Kinshasa. Nakamura leaves while Rusev and Lana are laid out in the ring.

* Sonya Deville defeated Naomi. It was really confusing how they did this. They came out to Rose’s music and it looked like she was wrestling Naomi but she backed out. The match started when Rose distracted Naomi and Deville hit her from behind. Deville later won with a Spinebuster.

* Backstage segments with Randy Orton and Mustafa Ali are shown, with them talking about tonight’s main event

* John Cena comes to the ring for a promo. Cena issues an open challenge but Becky Lynch interrupts and tells him that she’s the new man around WWE, and she’s taking his place. Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega interrupt. Vega talks trash to Becky and Cena. Cena challenges Vega and Almas to a tag team match, and they accept.

* Becky Lynch and John Cena defeated Zelina Vega and Andrade “Cien” Almas. Cena hit his signature moves on Almas but Becky tossed Cena out of the ring and made Vega submit to the Dis-Arm-Her for the win

* Backstage segment with Shane McMahon and The Miz talking about how they dress for their new tag team

* The Fatal 5 Way main event is next

* Backstage, Carmella, Becky and Charlotte make their case for a title shot. Triple H will make a decision as to who will challenge Asuka for the Smackdown Women’s title “later on.”

* AJ Styles defeated Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, Mustafa Ali, Samoa Joe to earn a title shot at the Rumble.
Maybe something from this week can make next year’s list. Check out the Top Ten SmackDown Live moments from 2018:

Top 10 SmackDown LIVE moments of 2018: WWE Top 10, Dec. 28, 2018

Opinion: This is one of my favorite times of the year and there’s a good reason to believe that this coming week’s show is going to be a lot of fun. As soon as we start the build to the Royal Rumble, it’s time for things to start getting that much better. In this case we have a few more names announced for the match along with the World Title match being set up. That’s not bad for two hours, and hopefully things go even better in action.

Which of these matches interests you the most? Who do you think wins the Royal Rumble? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 1997 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. We are proud to offer our popular Wrestling Rumors app and encourage you to download it for an optimized user experience. It is available for Android and also on iOS. Thank you for reading!