WWE Championship No. 1 Contender Gauntlet Match Announced for SmackDown Live

WWE Champion AJ Styles will have his next challenger determined on SmackDown Live on Tuesday night, as five men compete in a gauntlet match for the No. 1 contender spot.

The contenders, as announced during a commercial break on Monday Night Raw, will be The Miz, Daniel Bryan, Rusev, Big E and Samoa Joe.

The reigning champion has spent the last several months defending his title against Shinsuke Nakamura, who first won a title shot by winning the Royal Rumble in January. Styles pinned him cleanly at WrestleMania 34, only for Nakamura to turn heel, nail Styles with a low blow and extend the feud for several more months..

A rematch at the Greatest Royal Rumble ended in a double count-out several weeks later, and a third match at Backlash ended in similar fashion after neither man could answer the referee’s count following simultaneous low blows.

Styles finally put Nakamura down in a Last Man Standing match at Money in the Bank on Sunday, smashing his rival through an announcer’s table with a springboard Phenomenal Forearm outside the ring and keeping him down for a 10-count.

Elsewhere on Sunday night, Miz, Rusev and Joe all came out on the losing end of the eight-man Money in the Bank ladder match (won by Braun Strowman). Big E sat on the sidelines for the match as New Day tag partner Kofi Kingston competed, while Bryan walked away victorious in the opening match of the night by forcing Big Cass to tap out with a heel hook.

If this turns out to be anything like the last men’s gauntlet match WWE held, it could wind up being the only match on the entire show. Back in February a seven-man gauntlet match took place on an episode of Monday Night Raw involving Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, John Cena, Braun Strowman, Elias, The Miz and Finn Balor. The match clocked in at just over two hours, the longest in Raw history, and saw Rollins clock in a whopping 65 minutes in the match.

Speaking of Rollins, the former Shield member suffered a shocking loss on Monday night by losing his Intercontinental Championship in an open challenge match against Dolph Ziggler. Rollins announced after the match he’d be using his rematch clause on June 25 episode of Raw.

The winner of the gauntlet match will take on Styles at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 15.