WWE Championship match announced for Friday’s Smackdown (Elimination Chamber spoilers included)

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Just when it looked like the WWE Championship match was set for WrestleMania 42, the Smackdown General Manager added a new wrinkle. Nick Aldis announced on the Elimination Chamber post-show that Drew McIntyre will defend the WWE Championship against Cody Rhodes on Friday’s Smackdown.

Randy Orton pinned Rhodes to win the Elimination Chamber match to earn the right to challenge for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. McIntyre attacked Cody during the closing moments of the Chamber match. Orton put McIntyre down with an RKO, and then Rhodes followed up with CrossRhodes on McIntyre. When Cody stood up, Orton dropped him with an RKO and pinned him to win the match. Aldis confronted McIntyre in the backstage area and then headed to the post-show desk, where he announced Friday’s match. Check out the Elimination Chamber post-show below or on the WWE YouTube channel.

Powell’s POV: McIntyre blew off the pleas of Aldis, who repeatedly told him not to get involved in matches involving Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu. It will be interesting to see if the Logan Paul and Paul Heyman characters have anything to say about Aldis’s ruling, given that Seth Rollins attacked Paul moments earlier and caused him to be eliminated from the match. Either way, join me on Friday night for my weekly live review of Smackdown.

(Jason Powell, founder and editor of ProWrestling.net, has covered pro wrestling full-time dating back to 1997. He hosts a weekly podcast, Pro Wrestling Boom, and also appears regularly on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Reach him via email at [email protected] and on social media via @prowrestlingnet.bsky.social or x.com/prowrestlingnet. For his full bio and information on this website, click here.)