On tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live the semi-finals for the United States Title Tournament will take place with two matches. First, Xavier Woods will go one-on-one with former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. Second, Mojo Rawley will meet former NXT Champion Bobby Roode. The winners of those respective matches were originally slated to meet for the vacant United States Title at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view (PPV) in two weeks.
WWE.com has announced that is no longer the case, as instead the finals will be taking place on the go-home episode of SmackDown Live on January 23rd from the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC before the Rumble instead. There is some speculation going around that the winner of the tournament will face Dolph Ziggler at the Royal Rumble to crown the true United States Champion, as Ziggler seemingly vacated the strap after walking out on WWE in a storyline several weeks ago.
The Royal Rumble will go down live on PPV from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 28th.
