Scheduled for the Royal Rumble go-home edition of Raw is CM Punk and Cody Rhodes going face-to-face.
In the main event of the show, Seth Rollins retained his WWE World Heavyweight Championship over Jinder Mahal. Mahal had Indus Sher (Veer & Sanga) at ringside, but they were ejected by the referee. Mr. Money in the Bank Damian Priest brawled with Drew McIntyre which put his cash-in plans on hold.
There was a segment with Becky Lynch and WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley. Lynch expressed her thought that Ripley may be better than her, so she wants to prove that’s not the case by winning the women’s Royal Rumble and challenging Ripley at WrestleMania 40. Ripley hopes they clash at WrestleMania.
Xavier Woods made his return to in-ring action. Woods had not wrestled since the 11/27 Raw. He went one-on-one with Ludwig Kaiser and their match resulted in a disqualification after Woods threw a chair at him. They brawled post-match and Kaiser went after Woods again backstage, but Jey Uso made the save.
An update on Kofi Kingston was provided by Michael Cole following Kaiser’s beat down on Kingston. He’ll be out for a couple of weeks with a cervical and AC sprain.
Shinsuke Nakamura and WWE Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER declared for the men’s Royal Rumble.
There was a different stage setup for the show in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Akira Tozawa picked up a victory over Ivar and post-match, Ivar and Valhalla took out Tozawa and Maxxine Dupri. Scheduled for 1/22 are the following bouts:
- Chad Gable vs. Ivar
- Valhalla vs. Ivy Nile
- Drew McIntyre vs. Damian Priest
