Kevin Owens and the returning John Cena defeated Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn tonight on SmackDown.
A couple of weeks ago on the blue brand, Roman Reigns challenged Kevin Owens to a tag team match where the latter could pick any teammate he wanted. Later on in the night, John Cena revealed himself as Owens' tag partner.
This would also mark Cena's first match of the year. The tag match was gruesome to say the least. While Reigns and Zayn struggled out of the gate, Owens and Cena had no problems whatsoever.
.@JohnCena IS BACK!!!#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/7ZjCvN98D3
— WWE (@WWE) December 31, 2022
Sami was the odd one in this match who just couldn't mount any offense when given the opportunity. This also seemed to upset Reigns, who probably felt that he had to do all the work in the match.
After much anticipation, Cena was finally tagged in and he came in and hit a couple of shoulder tackles to Zayn. This was followed by an AA for Reigns while Kevin Owens hit a stunner to Sami for the win.
.@FightOwensFight and @JohnCena pick up the win over @WWERomanReigns & @SamiZayn!#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/NRqnhiXCh3
— WWE (@WWE) December 31, 2022
This is Roman Reigns' second loss of the year and it certainly won't make the Tribal Chief happy either. His first loss of the year came against Seth Rollins via disqualification at Royal Rumble 2022 earlier this year. We will have to wait until next week to see how he addresses this loss.