Real Reason SmackDown Stars Involved In WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament

WWE

The real reason why SmackDown stars are competing in the tournament for the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship has been revealed.

With WWE Undisputed Universal Champion Roman Reigns drafted to SmackDown, it was confirmed that the new World Heavyweight Title will be a Raw-exclusive championship.

Despite this, one half of the tournament bracket will be contested on SmackDown.

Per Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, the decision to have the tournament span both shows this week is because viewership would be expected to take a hit with ‘normal’ shows, due to big NBA games:

“If people are wondering why the Raw World Title is in a tournament on SmackDown, this is the reason – because they know a normal show right now will do a poor number, so they cannot do a normal show this week. And AEW knows the same thing.

“Wrestling fans are definitely getting benefited greatly by the fact that both of these promotions know that this is a bad week with that Warriors/Lakers series.”

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On the May 8 edition of WWE Raw, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor both won triple threat matches, before Rollins defeated Balor to advance to the tournament finals.

Two more triple threat bouts will take place on SmackDown, with AJ Styles, Austin Theory, Bobby Lashley, Edge, Rey Mysterio and Sheamus set to compete.

The tournament finals will take place at the May 27 Night of Champions premium live event in Saudi Arabia.

For more details on the tournament, click here.

Here’s a recap of what happened on the May 8 episode of WWE Raw:

Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins def. Damian Priest, Shinsuke Nakamura in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament

Mustafa Ali def. Otis when Chad Gable and Maxxine Dupri argued and distracted Otis

Finn Balor def. Cody Rhodes, The Miz in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament

Brock Lesnar, who had cost Cody Rhodes the aforementioned three-way, attacked Rhodes and demanded a rematch from Backlash at Night of Champions, which Rhodes later accepted

Rhea Ripley def. Dana Brooke and was then confronted by Natalya

Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn def. Giovanni Vinci & Ludwig Kaiser

Johnny Gargano, Candice LeRae, Indi Hartwell and Dexter Lumis reunited The Way backstage, and Gargano hinted at someone else returning soon which could be Tommaso Ciampa

Zoey Stark def. Nikki Cross

Becky Lynch returned and confronted Trish Stratus

Dominik Mysterio def. Xavier Woods

Seth Rollins def. Finn Balor in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament

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• champion
• tournament
• Smackdown
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