After 17 long months, WWE finally hosted a live show in front of a packed house on Friday night.A whopping 15,000 fans poured into Houston's Toyota Center to see chairman Vince McMahon welcome the WWE Universe home with a single line: "Where the hell have you been?!"It was a watershed moment for the pro wrestling juggernaut, who introduced the 'Thunderdome' - large LED screens that allowed fans to attend fights virtually - following the start of the pandemic last March.While WrestleMania took place in front of a reduced capacity crowd in Orlando earlier this year, Friday night’s episode of SmackDown produced the spine-tingling moments wrestling fans have been waiting for. And none were bigger than the crowd’s rapturous response to Edge and Roman Reigns... for opposite reasons.The former WWE Champion teamed up with Dominik and Rey Mysterio to go head-to-head with Universal Champion Roman Reigns and his cousins Jimmy & Jey Uso in a six-man tag-team match that served as a prelude to Edge and Reigns’ forthcoming battle for the Universal title.Although Reigns and Usos were ultimately victorious, Edge had the last laugh, grabbing a chair leg and trapping Reigns in a devastating Crossface during a hugely entertaining post-match assault. After Reigns tapped, Edge grabbed the Universal Championship belt and hoisted it in the air, driving the crowd wild.

In a backstage interview after the match, Edge said that he's going to have to do things that he hasn’t done before if he’s going to beat Reigns on Sunday.

"I have to beat Roman Reigns at his own game this Sunday. The last thing I have to do in this industry is win the Universal Championship."

The bout is going to be a huge main event in which Reigns is expected to beat Edge, but the WWE legend will be hoping to cause an upset, which, although unlikely, would drastically change the SmackDown landscape.

Friday’s homecoming also saw Finn Balor return to SmackDown, launching an attack on Sami Zayn, while Shotzi and Nox defeated WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Natalya and Tamina, and Bianca Belair beat Carmella in a SmackDown Women’s Championship Match.

SmackDown was just the beginning, though, as a capacity crowd will witness Money in the Bank on Sunday plus the post-MITB edition of Monday Night RAW on Monday as WWE looks to get back to normal.