Big E Returns To Action During SmackDown Live, Tags With The New Day

After being out of action for almost exactly two months, Big E made his return to the ring Tuesday night on SmackDown Live.

The second hour of the show kicked off with Big E and his fellow New Day partners, Xavier Woods and WWE Champion Kofi Kingston, making their way out to the ring. Big E was obviously pretty excited to be cleared for in ring competition.

The match pitted New Day against Dolph Ziggler, Sami Zayn, and Kevin Owens. Prior to the bout itself, the three men got on the microphone to take in Big E’s big night.

Kofi and Xavier announced tonight being the “actual” return of Big E. He has returned to SmackDown during his time away from his injury, only to not actually wrestle. He said that if he had a title run for every return, he’d be Charlotte Flair. Xavier said he wanted to get the match over as soon as possible so that he could get back to E3.

Woods and Kingston took some time recapping Kofi’s feud with Ziggler, talking about his past victories and noting they are going to do it one more time at Stomping Grounds, this time in a steel cage.

Ziggler’s theme music interrupted them. He walked out on the stage and said he put Kofi on a pedestal, telling the word that Kofi earned everything that he has received, yet he betrayed him. He said Kofi betrayed himself and noted there’s only one reason he is still WWE Champion. They then showed a clip from Super ShowDown where Woods hit Ziggler with a kick prior to Kingston hitting Trouble in Paradise for the win.

Ziggler said the footage doesn’t lie and even Kingston has to admit that “it should have been me.” He said at Stomping Grounds, there will be nobody to save him when they are locked inside a steel cage.

Kofi said Dolph forgot to show in the footage that earlier, Ziggler kicked Woods in the face. He asked him in what world would that be okay and whether he thought he wouldn’t get any retaliation?

This was interrupted by Owens and Zayn, and Zayn talked about how injustice really bothers him. He said if he or Ziggler or Owens had interfered in that fashion, the fans would have been up in arms. Instead, they’re all okay with this, which tells him (Sami) that the people don’t care about justice and have no moral or ethical code. Zayn and Ziggler called them all hypocrites, with Dolph calling Kofi the biggest hypocrite. Big E disagreed, saying Kofi is a man willing to walk through fire to show that he is the best.

After the lengthy promo segment, the match itself – was revealed to be later in the show. It ended up as the main event of SmackDown, and the early portion featured dominance by The New Day‘s opponents.

Kingston was worked over for the early duration until making the hot tag to Woods. He took out Ziggler and Zayn with a dropkick through the middle ropes to the outside, then brought Zayn back into the ring. As Woods went to the top, Ziggler tripped him up on the top rope to give the advantage back to his team.

Big E waited for the final hot tag as Woods was continually worked over by Owens, Zayn, and Ziggler on the opposite side of the ring. He turned the tide by hitting a DDT on Owens and made the hot tag to Big E. Ziggler was tagged in at the same time and received a series of overhead release belly to belly suplexes from Big E.

After some more brief offense, Ziggler scampered off and made a blind tag to Zayn. Big E had previously tagged in Kingston. After a messy situation where Ziggler even superkicked his own teammate, Kingston hit the Trouble in Paradise to gain the pinfall.