WWE’s plan for the SummerSlam Royal Rumble takes center stage.
Friday night’s SmackDown opened with LA Knight, who fired up the crowd and made several verbal attacks on the other battle royale participants. Knight’s taunts were accompanied by an image depicting himself, as well as Sheamus, Carrion Cross, Grayson Waller, Shinsuke Nakamura, Santos Escobar, Matt Riddle, AJ Styles, and The Miz.
Tommaso Ciampa, Chad Gable and Otis were announced as participants in the battle royale, but they were not included in the image shown on Friday night. Knight stated that there would be 25 men in the match, which means no more than 12 of those men have been revealed at the time of this writing.
Slim Jim is a sponsor of the SummerSlam Battle Royal. This is the start of a new “multi-level partnership” between Slim Jim and WWE, which was announced on Thursday. The Slim Jim branding is expected to appear in WWE in the future, including at the Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and WrestleMania 40.