The blue brand kicks off the New Year of 2024 tonight with their New Year’s Revolution special.
WWE Friday Night SmackDown: New Year’s Revolution goes down this evening at 8/7c on FOX from Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
On tap for tonight’s show are appearances by WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and WWE U.S. Champion Logan Paul, plus AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton vs. LA Knight in a title eliminator main event, Kevin Owens vs. Santos Escobar in the finals of the U.S. title contender tournament, IYO SKY vs. Michin for the WWE Women’s Championship, Pretty Deadly vs. Butch & TBA and more.
Featured below are complete WWE Friday Night SmackDown: New Year’s Revolution results from Friday, January 5, 2024. The following report was written by PWMania.com reporter Matt Boone (@MattBoone0709) as the show aired live from 8-10pm EST. on FOX.
WWE SMACKDOWN: NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION RESULTS (1/5/2024)
The “WWE Then. Now. Forever. Together.” signature airs and then we see The Rock’s “Head of the Table” promo from RAW. We then shoot to a car arriving in the parking lot. Roman Reigns steps out with Paul Heyman. Kayla Braxton attempts to get a word but Reigns laughs and walks off.
WWE U.S. Title Contender Tournament Finals
Kevin Owens vs. Santos Escobar
Now we shoot into the arena where Kevin Patrick and Corey Graves welcome us to the show. The theme for Kevin Owens hits and out comes “The Prize Fighter” for the finals of the U.S. title contender tournament. He settles in the ring and then the theme for Santos Escobar hits.
Out comes the former LWO member to square off against Owens to determine who will challenge Logan Paul for the U.S. Championship. Before the match begins, Logan’s theme hits and out he comes to sit at ringside. A brawl breaks out at ringside with everyone before the match begins.
In the ring, the match action finally gets underway. After Owens starts off strong, nearly finishing Escobar early with a high spot off the top-rope, Escobar takes over and we head into a mid-match commercial break as the action continues.
When we return from the break, we see Owens on the top-rope. Escobar knocks him off and takes over, focusing his attack on the injured right hand of “The Prize Fighter.” Meanwhile, Logan Paul has joined Patrick and Graves on special guest commentary for this one.
The Canadian crowd breaks out into a “Logan sucks!” chant. He takes his headset off at the desk and stands up to soak up the hate. Owens finally starts to fight back into competitive form, while selling his broken right hand big time. He climbs to the top rope again but again Santos stops him.
Santos climbs up after him and lays in some elbows. Santos looks for a super-plex off the top-rope, but Owens counters with a big high spot that even Logan looked impressed with. On that note, we head into another mid-match commercial break as the action continues.
As we settle back in from the second mid-match commercial time out, we see Owens fight back into the offensive lead and ultimately finish off Escobar with a stunner to earn the next title shot at U.S. Champion Logan Paul. After the bout, Paul cut a promo trashing Canada and Owens knocked him out.
Winner and ADVANCING to U.S. title shot: Kevin Owens
AOP Joins Forces With Karrion Kross, Attacks Bobby Lashley & The Street Profits
Now we hear the familiar sounds of the entrance tune of Bobby Lashley. “The All Mighty” emerges accompanied by The Street Profits. As the trio settle in the ring, we shift gears and head into a quick commercial break.
When we return, we see Logan Paul icing his face after being decked by Kevin Owens earlier in the show. Cathy Kelley walks up to interview him but Austin Theory and Grayson Waller show up and pamper him and treat him like a delicate mega-star. Cameron Grimes comes up laughing and gets in a pull-apart with Theory and Waller.
Back in the ring, Lashley gets on the mic and vows to get back to being “The All Mighty” in 2024. To start this, he is officially declaring himself for this year’s Royal Rumble match. He also takes some time to put over The Street Profits, who get a moment on the mic to make their tag-team title ambitions clear.
As they continue to talk, the tron screen shows Karrion Kross’ hour glass when out he comes with Scarlett and Paul Ellering. From behind, The Authors of Pain attack Lashley and the Profits. They all leave together and stand tall, forming a new faction. We head to another break.
WWE Women’s Championship
IYO SKY (C) vs. Michin
We see a video package looking at AJ Styles’ history with The Bloodline and recent return to the scene in WWE. They promote tonight’s three-way main event to determine Roman Reigns’ opponent for the Universal title bout at WWE Royal Rumble 2024.
After that wraps up, Styles’ friend from The O.C., Michin, a.k.a. Mia Yim, makes her way down to the ring. She settles inside the squared circle and her entrance tune dies down. The familiar sounds of IYO SKY’s theme hits next and out comes the “Genius of the Sky” for her latest title defense.
The commentators point out that SKY is coming to the ring and competing in this title bout tonight without any of the other members of Damage CTRL being by her side. The bell sounds and we’re officially off-and-running with this one. We see some crazy back-and-forth action right out of the gate and then we head to a mid-match break.
When we return, the action picks up even more, with a huge high spot from the ring to the floor and a wild suplex on the hard part of the ring apron outside of the ring ropes. We then see an insane Styles Clash off the top-rope from Michin, but SKY kicks out. SKY hits her Moonsault finisher to retain in an excellent match. Really good.
Winner and STILL WWE Women’s Champion: IYO SKY
Paul Heyman Responds To The Rock’s Comments About Roman Reigns
We shoot backstage to Paul Heyman standing by himself in the interview zone. Kevin Patrick asks him from the commentary desk to respond to The Rock’s “Head of the Table” comments from WWE Day 1.
He talks about how Rock did it for a short-cut to the headlines. He says calling out Roman Reigns, like dating Taylor Swift, is a guaranteed way to do that. He mentions John Cena coming back for Reigns, CM Punk coming back, Randy Orton and others. He says no one can dethrone “The Tribal Chief.”
Pretty Deadly vs. Butch & Tyler Bate
Now we return inside the Rogers Arena where Pretty Deadly’s theme hits and out comes Elton Prince and Kit Wilson for our next match of the evening. As they make their way down to the ring, we head to another pre-match commercial break.
When we return, we see Damage CTRL celebrating IYO SKY’s big win. Bayley then talks about how The Kabuki Warriors have a goal to win the Undisputed WWE Women’s Tag-Team Championships. Bayley also mentions how she is going to win the Royal Rumble. Bianca Belair walks up and says she’s entering the Royal Rumble as well.
Back inside the arena, Pretty Deadly settle in the ring and then Butch’s theme hits. He pauses and Tyler Bate’s music plays. “The Big Strong Boy” comes out to join Butch for this tag-team showdown. After some early back-and-forth action, we head into a mid-match commercial break. When we return, Butch and Bate hit a Tag-Team Tyler Driver for the win.
Winners: Butch & Tyler Bate
Nick Aldis Has Ideas For Ashante “Thee” Adonis
When we return, we see a graphic touting The Rock’s return at WWE Day 1 breaking the CM Punk social media record for most-watched video ever, with 171 million views.
We then shoot backstage where Ashante “Thee” Adonis is talking about not knowing where to go. SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis is sitting with him and tells him he has some ideas for him.
WWE Universal Championship Eliminator
AJ Styles vs. LA Knight vs. Randy Orton
It’s main event time!
Who is going to challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship at the first WWE premium live event of the New Year of 2024 at WWE Royal Rumble later this month? It’s time to find out!
The theme for AJ Styles hits and out comes “The Phenomenal One” for our high stakes main event of the evening, a triple-threat title eliminator bout. The theme for LA Knight hits next and the crowd explodes.
Finally, Randy Orton’s theme hits and “The Apex Predator” emerges to a big pop as well. We head to a pre-match commercial break before things get started. When we return, the bell sounds and off we go.
Early on, we see all three duking it out when finally, it is Styles who starts to pull ahead. He is taken out and then Orton and Knight go at it. Knight bounces Styles’ head off the commentary table over and over again as fans chant “Yeah! Yeah!”
Back in the ring, Orton starts to take over. The action spills out to the floor again as we head into a mid-match commercial break. When we return, Orton bounces Knight off the commentary desk. Fans chant one more time and he does it again.
Orton hits his draping DDT spot in the ring for a close near fall. We head into another mid-match commercial break. This time when we return, we see Orton fire up as the crowd goes bonkers chanting his name.
He looks for an RKO but Knight sees it coming and counters with a BFT. He goes for the cover, but Styles grabs the ref’s hand before he can count three. Styles hits an insane 450 splash off the top-rope for a super close near fall attempt.
The action resumes inside the ring where Styles heads outside the ring ropes. He springboards in looking for a Phenomenal Forearm, but Orton counters him in mid-air and hits an RKO out of nowhere for an insane pop. He goes for the cover, but Knight breaks it up.
As the three start to mix it up again, out of nowhere the theme for Roman Reigns hits and out comes “The Tribal Chief” looking all business, as Solo Sikoa and Jimmy Uso walk by his side and The Bloodline trio heads down to the ringside area.
Solo slides right into the ring and starts brawling with Knight. Reigns and Uso hit the ring next and begin stomping out Orton and Styles. Solo grabs the top-half of the steel ring steps and blasts Orton in the dome with it. Uso clears off the commentary desk.
Reigns takes out Styles in the ring. He waits for Knight to get up and blasts him with a Superman punch. Knight is busted open and badly bleeding from the head. Reigns hits him with a follow-up Spear. Solo hits Orton with a Samoan Spike and then Reigns Spears him.
Nick Aldis stands up from his seat at ringside and stops Paul Heyman. He tells “The Wise Man” off-mic that Reigns now has a fatal-four-way match at the Royal Rumble, where he will defend his Universal title against Orton, Knight and Styles. Heyman looks shocked and the show goes off the air.
Winner: No Contest
