Tonight’s WWE SmackDown Live will take place from the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky as the road to Clash of Champions continues.

* Randy Orton battles Kevin Owens

* AJ Styles faces The Singh Brothers in a Handicap Match

* The New Day square off with Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable

* The Fashion Files returns with a question: “Do you want to play a game?”

* Liv Morgan, Ruby Riot and Sarah Logan vs. Natalya, Naomi and SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair

WWE recently made the call to bring five women from NXT to the main roster and their reasoning for doing so is pretty simple.

Sources tell us Vince McMahon made the decision to call up multiple women from NXT shortly after the Mae Young Classic took place because he felt like the women’s divisions had been getting stale.

Mandy Rose was the first name mentioned, since creative had pitched ideas for her debut in the past.

In case you missed it, Mandy and Sonya Deville debuted on Raw with Paige during her return. Liv Morgan, Sarah Logan and Ruby Riot debuted on SmackDown Live the following night.

With so many debuts at once, rumors began to swirl about a possible women’s Royal Rumble match this year — for what it’s worth though, Pro Wrestling Sheet‘s sources haven’t heard anything about that being in the works. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility.

Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet

The return of Paige and several NXT female stars being called up this week led to speculation that WWE will be holding a Women’s Royal Rumble at The Royal Rumble pay-per-view in January. For what it’s worth, The Sun in the U.K. is reporting that WWE will in fact be announcing a Women’s Rumble match for the show. The Sun reported:

“But now the event is set to be confirmed, although the details remain scarce and it is possible it may not have entrants as in the male equivalent. A number of women on the roster have already spoken on the possibility of a women’s Rumble.”

It should be noted that Dave Meltzer reported on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE is currently not planning to have a women’s Rumble match at the event.

As of this writing, following the NXT call-ups this week, WWE has 11 active female talents on the RAW roster and 10 on SmackDown. During an interview with The Montgomery Advertiser’s“Piledriver” podcast in January, Bayley said she was open to the idea if WWE brought in more talent.

“I kind of honestly think we need a few more girls to do something like that because the guys have 30 men,” Bayley said. “We don’t have many girls. Even if it was Raw and Smackdown combined, I don’t think it would make it 20. If we had more girls brought in, maybe like NXT girls, that would be really cool and I think it would be a lot of fun.”

Source: WrestlingINC

WWE is currently planning 14 pay-per-view events for 2018 – 5 RAW brand events, 4 SmackDown brand events and 5 co-branded events, according to PWInsider. Money In the Bank will now be a co-branded event.

Below is the current pay-per-view schedule for 2018:

* January 28th, Philadelphia: Royal Rumble

* February 25th, Las Vegas: Elimination Chamber (RAW)

* March 11th, Columbus, OH: Fast Lane (SmackDown)

* April 8th, New Orleans: WrestleMania 34

* May 6th, Newark, NJ: Backlash (RAW)

* May 27th, Baltimore: Payback (SmackDown)

* June 17th, Chicago: Money In the Bank

* July 15th, Pittsburgh: Battleground (RAW)

* August 19th, Brooklyn: SummerSlam

* September 16th, San Antonio: Extreme Rules (RAW)

* September 30th, Nashville: Hell In a Cell (SmackDown)

* October 21st, Boston: TLC (RAW)

* November 18th, Los Angeles: Survivor Series

* December 16th, San Jose: Clash of Champions (SmackDown)

Source: WrestlingINC

Tonight’s WWE SmackDown Live will take place from the Toyota Center in Houston with the fallout from Sunday’s Survivor Series pay-per-view.

WWE is focusing on the following points for tonight’s blue brand show:

* How will Shane McMahon deal with the fallout from Survivor Series?

* Will AJ Styles cross paths with Jinder Mahal after tangling with The Beast?

* Will the SmackDown Women’s division bow down to The Queen?

* Will The Bludgeon Brothers make a dominant reemergence against The Hype Bros?

* What will Baron Corbin do next after clobbering The Miz at Survivor Series?

At Survivor Series this past Sunday, WWE was promoting a Jinder Mahal vs. AJ Styles WWE Championship match for tonight’s SmackDown Live. Those plans apparently changed on Monday, and the match is no longer scheduled for tonight’s show. WWE released the promo below from Jinder to hype tonight’s show, who called AJ Styles a disappointment for being “victimized” and “beaten” by Brock Lesnar at the Survivor Series. Jinder also seemingly confirmed that his rematch with Styles will not be happening tonight, saying “very soon I will become two-time WWE Champion. So when and where the Modern Day Maharaja re-invokes his rematch clause has yet to be seen, but I promise you that there will be gold around this waist very soon.”