WWE SmackDown in London: Drew McIntyre’s First Night as Champion Shakes Up the Road to WrestleMania
The January 16, 2026 episode of WWE SmackDown from London’s OVO Arena Wembley wasn’t just another stop on the weekly wrestling treadmill. It was Drew McIntyre’s first night walking into SmackDown as the new WWE Champion, the latest Netflix simulcast showcase, and a pivot point for the men’s main event scene with multiple qualifiers feeding into a four-way number one contender’s match. Throw in Carmelo Hayes putting the U.S. Title on the line in an open challenge, and you’ve got a show built to feel like the “season premiere” of WWE’s next phase.
SmackDown in the Netflix Era: Why This Episode Mattered
SmackDown episode 1,378 landed in a very particular moment for WWE: the product is still adjusting to streaming-first distribution, titles have been reshuffled, and London continues its unofficial role as WWE’s “third home market.” Jason Powell’s live review at ProWrestling.net framed this show as both a celebration of McIntyre’s long road back to the top and a practical piece of booking—setting up the next challenger while spotlighting the U.S. Championship scene.
Drew McIntyre’s First Night as WWE Champion on SmackDown
Drew McIntyre’s homecoming-of-sorts at Wembley hit that sweet spot between victory lap and “now what?” statement. As reported in Powell’s recap, McIntyre soaked in a strongly pro-Scottish-and-British crowd, the kind of reaction that would’ve felt unthinkable during his early 2010s “Chosen One” run.
“McIntyre carried himself like a champion who finally belongs at the very top, and the London crowd treated him like the company’s standard-bearer.”
The segment positioned McIntyre as the locker room’s measuring stick without leaning too hard into “corporate poster boy” energy. That’s crucial: modern WWE audiences tend to revolt when they sense the machine pushing too hard. Here, the machine and the crowd actually seemed in sync.
From a storytelling standpoint, his promo did three smart things:
- Reasserted his underdog-to-champion arc without rehashing every beat.
- Teased potential challengers for the upcoming four-way number one contender’s match.
- Anchored the episode emotionally, so the qualifiers later in the night felt like they were happening in his orbit.
Qualifiers for the Four-Way: Building McIntyre’s Next Challenger
The spine of the episode was the series of qualifying matches feeding into a future four-way to determine McIntyre’s next WWE Title challenger. Structurally, it’s very “WWE 2020s”: rather than one big tournament, you get bite-sized qualifiers spread across shows to keep streaming viewers from tuning out.
Powell’s review highlighted that the qualifiers were less about shock results and more about:
- Re-establishing upper-midcard names as credible threats.
- Planting mini-feuds that can be paid off even if those wrestlers don’t win the four-way.
- Making the eventual challenger feel like they’ve actually earned it, not just been “handpicked.”
From a pacing perspective, spacing the qualifiers across the episode helped avoid the classic SmackDown slump where the second hour feels like an afterthought. Everything tied back to that central question: who’s going to step to McIntyre first?
Carmelo Hayes and the U.S. Title Open Challenge
The U.S. Championship has quietly become one of WWE’s most flexible storytelling tools, and Carmelo Hayes is tailor-made for that role. His U.S. Title open challenge on this SmackDown wasn’t just a midcard time-filler; it functioned as a mission statement.
“Hayes brings an NXT-style workrate and swagger to a title that’s bounced between serious prize and afterthought. The open challenge helps define it firmly as the former.”
Open challenges are a double-edged sword: done right, they create unpredictability and showcase a variety of opponents; done wrong, they become repetitive “insert good match here” segments. According to Powell’s live notes, this leaned toward the former, with Hayes:
- Putting in a high-energy, TV-friendly match pace.
- Cutting a promo that made the U.S. Title feel like a brand within a brand.
- Positioning himself as the “workhorse” champ without copy-pasting John Cena’s 2015 playbook.
Crowd, Production, and the Netflix Factor
London crowds have a reputation: loud, inventive, and occasionally more interested in entertaining themselves than in following the script. On this SmackDown, that energy largely worked in WWE’s favor. McIntyre, especially, benefited from a football-style atmosphere that made his segments feel bigger than a standard weekly TV beat.
Production-wise, the Netflix simulcast internationally is still finding its rhythm, but Powell’s notes suggest the usual WWE slickness was intact—tight camera cuts, high-end lighting, and pacing that clearly assumes people might be watching on phones or tablets as much as on big screens.
- Pros: International prestige, hot crowd, and a show that felt “live sports big” rather than just “episodic TV.”
- Cons: Some segments still felt formulaic, and the Netflix-era production hasn’t significantly reinvented the wheel yet.
Episode Highlights and Lowlights
Without relisting every move of every match, Powell’s live review helps crystallize what clicked and what didn’t on this SmackDown.
What Worked
- Drew McIntyre’s presentation: Confident, grounded, and framed as “the guy” without drowning in corporate speak.
- Coherent stakes: The four-way qualifiers and the U.S. Title open challenge gave the card a clear narrative spine.
- Match quality: A modern WWE TV mix—crisp, athletic, and tailored for highlight reels and social clips.
What Fell Short
- Some segments reportedly leaned on familiar tropes—run-ins, distraction finishes, and post-match brawls that feel very “we’ve been here before.”
- Certain midcard acts still felt like they were orbiting the main story without a fully defined direction of their own.
“SmackDown felt important, even if certain finishes were more about extending stories than delivering clean conclusions.”
Where This SmackDown Fits in the Bigger WWE Picture
In isolation, this was a solid-to-strong episode anchored by a new champion and meaningful stakes. In context, it’s part of a broader WWE strategy: rely on proven main-eventers like McIntyre while using titles like the U.S. Championship to build the next wave, exemplified by Carmelo Hayes.
London’s role here can’t be understated either. WWE has steadily cultivated the U.K. and European markets as not just “tour stops” but as premium destinations. A Netflix-era SmackDown from OVO Arena Wembley featuring the newly crowned champ is less a one-off and more a statement that major angles and title arcs don’t have to be confined to North American TV tapings.
Verdict: A Confident Step for McIntyre, a Steady Hand for SmackDown
As a piece of weekly wrestling television, this SmackDown delivered: a firmly established champion, clear pathways to a future title match, and a U.S. Title scene that feels alive. It didn’t reinvent WWE’s formula, but it didn’t need to. Instead, it showed how that formula can still feel sharp when the right people are in the featured roles.
The real test will be follow-through. If the four-way and its fallout lead to a compelling, credible challenger for Drew McIntyre—and if Carmelo Hayes’s U.S. Title run continues to get meaningful TV time—this episode will look, in retrospect, like an important early chapter in the Netflix-era SmackDown canon rather than just a lively London detour.
Analysis compiled with reference to Jason Powell’s live coverage at ProWrestling.net.
Overall episode score: 7.5/10
