WWE SmackDown Results: Winners, Grades, Reaction, Highlights from January 22 - Bleacher Report

As WWE prepares for the Royal Rumble on January 31, it's all hands on deck as more and more Superstars declare their entries and attempt to qualify for the titular Rumble matches.

After earning a title shot by defeating Sami Zayn last week, Apollo Crews challenged Big E in a match for the Intercontinental Championship.

We also saw Bayley and Bianca Belair compete on an obstacle course to see which one was the superior athlete, and Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens prepared for their showdown at The Royal Rumble.

SmackDown opened with a video package recapping what happened last week with Reigns and Adam Pearce before The Tribal Chief and Paul Heyman made their way to the ring. .

Pearce came out and said this has gone too far and things are getting out of control.

Reigns said the only thing that is out of control is Owens being in a title match. .

Reigns felt disrespected and had Heyman rip into Pearce.

This led to Heyman challenging Pearce to a match, which was quickly accepted. .

Despite being a heel, almost everything he said was true, especially when it came to his health.

The women's tag team champions took a trip to the blue brand this week to take on Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott, with Billie Kay in their corner.

The Queen and Riott started the match with a basic lockup and takedown combination.

The match itself was pretty good and gave all four women a chance to showcase their skills.

Daniel Bryan came out to talk about how The Royal Rumble event always makes him feel excited.

We returned from a commercial to see the match getting going.

Between this and his win over Bryan last week, Cesaro appears to be getting a push heading into the men's Royal Rumble match.

Reginald tried to win over Sasha Banks with a rose at the start of the match, but she smacked the taste out of his mouth.

The match was just getting going when Zayn interfered, so it ended up stopping short of reaching its full potential in many ways

Crews, Zayn and Big E will likely end up in a triple threat match at The Royal Rumble to settle this once and for all. 

As Heyman made his way to the ring, he pretended to suffer a leg injury

He did the same thing Pearce did last week and named a replacement

That is when Reigns came to the ring

KO came out of nowhere and saved Pearce from certain destruction by attacking the universal champion

They brawled near the LED screens with fans on them before going back to the ring

We might not have gotten to see Pearce come out of retirement to hand Heyman a beating, but we did get to see Owens destroy Reigns, so the show had a happy ending

It was clear Heyman was never going to have a real match, but there was still hope for Pearce to get in a few good shots

The feud between Reigns and KO is being carried solely by the skill of the two men involved