Daniel Bryan has been on a tear as of late on SmackDown Live - and it's all down to his new heel persona.

His running down of the fans for their consumerism and apparent destruction of the environment has made for some interesting content, but he's been missing one thing as of recent weeks - a challenger for his WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble.

With AJ Styles losing his rematch at TLC to Bryan, you would have thought he would have to head to the back of the line, especially after his altercation last week with Vince McMahon.

But he was one of the five participants in an epic SmackDown main event, alongside Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio and the newest blue brand member - Mustafa Ali.

They were joined by Samoa Joe, who was the only one who had to earn his way into the bout earlier in the evening.

The Samoan Submission Machine seemingly closed out his feud with Jeff Hardy by making him pass out to the Coquina Clutch, turning the number one contendership match into a Fatal 5-Way.

As you can expect from a mix of powerful superstars and high-flying athletes, the match had just about everything.

Everyone seemed to get their big spots in mid-match, but the tide seemingly turned when Joe slammed Styles through the announcers table with a huge Uranage.

And the ending sequence really was a thing of beauty.

Orton laid out Ali with an RKO, but Mysterio broke the pinfall up with a flying leg drop, and set up the Viper for the 619.

Joe intervened though before Mysterio could hit his splash from the ropes, only to be hit by a Hurricanrana outside the ring.

That left a recovering Styles to hit the Springboard 450 Splash to a stricken Orton in the middle of the ring to once again become the challenger to Bryan's belt.

WWE could have booked someone fresh to face Bryan for the title, he hasn't faced Mysterio for example since his return to the ring.

But you know another bout between 'The New' Bryan and The Phenomenal One in-front of what could be a 48,000 crowd will blow the roof off Chase Field - even though it doesn't have one.

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