Who Qualified For Saturday Night's Main Event? 4-Way & Cody Rhodes vs. Jacob Fatu Updates

Who Qualified For Saturday Night's Main Event? 4-Way & Cody Rhodes vs. Jacob Fatu Updates

Friday Night SmackDown featured four qualifying matches to determine who will fight for a shot at Drew McIntyre's WWE Championship at Royal Rumble, and a new match has been added to the card.

By AnthonyMango - Jan 16, 2026 05:01 PM EST
Filed Under: WWE

Five updates took place for the WWE Saturday Night's Main Event card as of today's episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown.

Keep in mind, though SmackDown has yet to air yet as of this publication in the United States, the broadcast took place starting at 3pm ET coming out of the live show in London out of the OVO Arena Wembley. For full results of SmackDown, click here.

Four of the bouts on the show were qualifying matches set up last week, with the idea in mind being that the four winners would go on to a Fatal 4-Way to determine the next challenger for the Undisputed WWE Championship. As Drew McIntyre defeated Cody Rhodes last week in their 3 Stages of Hell match to win the title, he is the defending champion going into the Royal Rumble pay-per-view for that match.

First up for the night was Randy Orton defeating The Miz, who had attacked him from behind in the opening segment to try to get an advantage.

Later, despite Matt Cardona's aspirations to return to WWE for the title, he fell short against Trick Williams.

Damian Priest had a battle ahead of him with Solo Sikoa, knowing that the MFTs would interfere in the match. The Wyatt Sicks thankfully came out to get involved and go after some of them, which provided enough of a balancing act so The Archer of Infamy could get the win.

Finishing out the qualifiers, Sami Zayn defeated Ilja Dragunov, who had previously beaten Zayn for the Men's United States Championship in 2025.

With all that in mind, that means one of Orton, Williams, Priest, or Zayn will be going on to the Royal Rumble in Riyadh to face McIntyre for the title.

Also added to the card, though, is a singles match between Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu. Rhodes has declared himself for the Royal Rumble entry, but is still looking to get some revenge on The Samoan Werewolf for having cost him the title. They fought in a quick brawling segment before it was announced that they would properly fight next Saturday, January 24th at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

Who do you think will win the Fatal 4-Way to become the next No. 1 contender? Will Rhodes or Fatu walk out of Saturday Night's Main Event with momentum? Drop your predictions in the comments section below and stay tuned for more updates to SNME here at TheRingReport!

About The Author:
AnthonyMango
Member Since 5/12/2011
Founder of Smark Out Moment (https:/www.smarkoutmoment.com) and Fanboys Anonymous (https:/www.fanboysanonymous.com)
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