Judgment Day(2016)

Judgment Day(2016) was a pay-per-view, which took place on May 22nd, 2016, live from Seattle, Washington. The main event was a match between The Rock and Randy Orton for the WWE Title.

Background
This was the first pay-per-view of the series to bear the Judgment Day name. It was the first Smackdown-hosted pay-per-view and the first brand specific pay-per-view of the series.

Judgment Day was a five match card, with one pre-show match. Randy Orton won the right to challenge The Rock for the title, defeating Daniel Bryan in an unsanctioned match on the May 12th edition of Smackdown. Orton lost the title to The Rock on April 14th, and recieved a rematch for the belt at Extreme Rules, losing in a triple threat also involving Bryan. Dean Ambrose and Booker T squared off once more for the United States Title, this marking the fourth one-on-one match these two have had. Smackdown GM Teddy Long announced that the match would be a 30-minute Iron Man Match, and would finally settle the score between the pair. At Extreme Rules, Brie Bella returned to stop her sister, Nikki, from injuring AJ Lee post-match. Brie was taken out by Nikki a few weeks earlier, and she was looking for revenge. After Brie refused to help her sister, Teddy Long made a triple threat match, that saw the Bellas and Natalya, who owns two victories over the champ, square off for the Women's World Title. A fatal four way would determine the next number one contender for the WWE Title, as Batista, Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler and Austin Aries squared off. Each man won a singles match to earn the opportunity. Finally, the Prime Time Players would defend their WWE Tag Team Titles against the New Day, who defeated Tyson Kidd and Cesaro to become the new number one contenders.

Event
The pre-show saw a match between Bret Hart and Randy Savage, which Hart won using multiple piledrivers. The pre-show also saw an edition of MizTV, where The Miz announced the debut of the Awesome Challenge.

There were four title matches on the card, and two titles changed hands. The New Day, Kofi Kingston and Big E with Xavier Woods in their corner, defeated the Prime Time Players to become the second team to hold the WWE Tag Team Titles. In the main event, Randy Orton won the WWE Title for the second time, hit two RKOs on The Rock to win the title. After the match, he declared that the Age of Orton had begun on Smackdown.

The opening triple threat match saw Nikki Bella retain her title after pinning her sister Brie with a snapmare knee smash. Dean Ambrose retained his United States Title against Booker T in the Iron Man Match, winning two falls to one. Booker got the first fall off an Axe Kick, and Ambrose equalized with a Dirty Deeds. The final fall ocurred after a missed elbow drop from Booker saw Dean score a roll-up with a handful of tights.

The fatal four way was changed to a number one contender's chase, where competitors are eliminated by pinfall or submission until one man is left standing. Kevin Owens was the first man eliminated after Austin Aries hit him with a Brainbuster on a steel chair. After the match, Owens assaulted Aries with a sledgehammer and was suspended by Smackdown GM Teddy Long.