The Undertaker returns to ‘SmackDown Live’ on November 15th’s show. (WWE.com)
Tonight on SmackDown Live, the show’s 900th episode will feature the return of The Undertaker. Plus, Edge is back, returning to SmackDown Live to host his show “The Cutting Edge.” This is the final episode prior to Sunday’s Survivor Series pay-per-view, and last night on Monday Night Raw, Team SmackDown suffered an embarrassing loss at the hands of Team Raw. How will they come back from that this evening? The show will be broadcast tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the USA Network. Read on for match results and spoilers, followed by a preview of the night’s events written earlier this afternoon.
8:00 – The show opens with a SmackDown retrospective montage to celebrate the 900th episode.
8:02 – Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan enter. They announce that Edge and The Undertaker will be on tonight’s show, but first up is the Intercontinental Championship match between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler.
8:05 – The Miz defeats Dolph Ziggler, becoming the new Intercontinental Champion. This happens thanks to the interference of Maryse and The Spirit Squad.
8:36 – Backstage, Alexa Bliss argues with Daniel Bryan about the result of last week’s women’s championship match, saying that the referee’s decision wasn’t fair and that her foot was on the rope. Bryan says that she will get her rematch but that the referee’s decision is final.
8:38 – Kalisto defeats Biff Busick, a.k.a. Oney Lorcan.
8:48 – Backstage, Heath Slater and Rhyno tries to pump up the SmackDown tag team division. He brings in a motivation speaker: Booker T, who gets them excited and then yells at Breezango.
8:51 – Carmella defeats Nikki Bella by disqualification. In the middle of the match, Charlotte Flair arrives, carrying her Raw Women’s Championship. She has a SmackDown Live ticket, and she takes a seat in the front row to watch the match. After Charlotte starts mocking Nikki Bella, Bella attacks Charlotte, resulting in the referee disqualifying her. Suddenly, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Alicia Fox, and Nia Jax all arrive to fight Nikki Bella. And then the full Team SmackDown Women’s Team follows shortly after, and all 10 women begin to fight outside the ring. Ultimately, the SmackDown team gets the upper hand on Team Raw.
9:22 – The Usos, The Hypo Bros, Breezango, American Alpha defeat The Spirit Squad, The Headbangers, The Ascension & The Vaudevillains in a 16-man tag team elimination match.
9:40 – Edge enters, returning to host “The Cutting Edge.” He says he helped make SmackDown, and so he has a vested interest in seeing Team Blue succeed this Sunday.
Edge welcomes out Team SmackDown; AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, Shane McMahon, Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt enter, along with James Ellsworth. Edge says that SmackDown is the land of opportunity, and there’s one man that personifies that better than anyone else. That man is James Ellsworth, and Edge shakes Ellsworth’s hand and says he’s proud of him. This really upsets AJ Styles, who assumed Edge was talking about him. Styles declares that he’s the face that runs this place and that no one cares about Edge.
Edge turns to Randy Orton, questioning why Orton is now a member of the Wyatt Family. Bray Wyatt says that the old Randy Orton is dead, but come this Sunday, the entire world will see a far more dangerous Viper than ever before.
Shane McMahon says that nobody on this team has to like each other, but on Sunday, they all have to be on the same page. Styles says that they’ll all stick together because Styles is the one who decided to be the bigger man and try to get along with Dean Ambrose. Ambrose says that as soon as Survivor Series is over, he’s going after AJ Styles and taking his championship back.
The Undertaker enters. He says that there could be no better man to be commissioner of SmackDown than the man who has no fear, Shane McMahon. Undertaker says that he’s here for two reasons. One, WrestleMania will no longer define who he is. Survivor Series is where The Undertaker was born, and SmackDown has always been his home. This brings him to the second reason: At this year’s Survivor Series, there’s no reason to fear failure, but if they fail, they will have reason to fear The Dead Man.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of tonight’s SmackDown is the highly-anticipated return of The Undertaker. He was last seen at WrestleMania 32 back in April, when he defeated Shane McMahon in a Hell in a Cell match. What will McMahon’s first conversation with The Undertaker since WrestleMania be like? And might there be a role for The Undertaker in Sunday’s Survivor Series?
The Undertaker isn’t the only superstar making a return tonight, though. There’s also Edge, who has not appeared on WWE television in 2016 thus far, having last been seen in September 2015. As Shane McMahon recently revealed on Twitter, Edge will be hosting a special edition of “The Cutting Edge” this evening, presumably as a way of promoting the Survivor Series pay-per-view.
The 900th episode of #SDLive just got a little EDGiEr. The Rated-R Superstar will be LIVE with a special edition of the #CuttingEdge! @WWE
The 900th episode of SmackDown will also feature the Intercontinental Championship rematch between Dolph Ziggler and The Miz. This comes over a month after the No Mercy pay-per-view, when Dolph Ziggler defeated The Miz in a career-versus-title match and became the new Intercontinental Champion. Will Ziggler be able to retain the belt, or will his reign come to a quick end at the hands of The Miz?
Finally, Nikki Bella will take on Carmella a few days ahead of Survivor Series, when Bella must cast aside her anger and help coach Carmella in the women’s elimination match.