Goldberg Challenges Roman Reigns, Allin vs. Guevara Tease, More Friday Fallout

This week's SmackDown and Rampage both laid some groundwork for upcoming pay-per-views with segments that confirmed a few matches and set others in motion.

Bill Goldberg returned to WWE television in the opening segments of SmackDown to officially challenge Roman Reigns to a match for the Universal Championship.

Ronda Rousey made her first appearance on the blue brand in the closing segment to let Charlotte Flair know that she would be challenging her for the SmackDown women's title at WrestleMania 38 on the weekend of April 2.

Over on Rampage, Adam Cole picked up a win over Evil Uno, and Darby Allin came to Sammy Guevara's aide while simultaneously letting him know that he was looking to regain the TNT Championship down the line. 

Let's look at some of the bigger developments from Friday's shows. 

Heyman and the rest of The Bloodline opened SmackDown so he could explain his motivations for turning on Brock Lesnar so he could realign with Reigns at The Royal Rumble.

After he did his usual song and dance, Goldberg's music hit and the former world champion made his way to the ring. He lured Reigns into a false sense of security by pretending to acknowledge him before declaring that the only thing he acknowledged was Reigns becoming his next victim.

With the WWE title on the line inside The Elimination Chamber, it looks like we know what WWE plans to do with the Universal Championship at the next big event.

Goldberg vs. Reigns isn't exactly ideal after Big E campaigned for a match against the WCW legend for the past few years, but this is for one of the Saudi Arabia shows, so a lot of people will be skipping it anyway.

Once this brief feud is over, we should get a better idea of what Reigns will be doing on the Road to WrestleMania. 

Aliyah has been wrestling since 2013 and working for WWE since 2015, but WWE portrays her character as some kind of starry-eyed newcomer to the world of pro wrestling. It's bizarre.

Her feud with Natalya continued this week when she picked up a countout victory over the Guinness World Record holder in a short match.

The Queen of Harts went to Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville to request one more match without count-outs or disqualifications. She called it a Dungeon-style match.

The two authority figures booked it, so next week, Natalya will have a chance to prove she is the superior wrestler. Or, Aliyah will win with the most dangerous move in pro wrestling, the roll-up. 

Either way, WWE needs to move through this and figure out what it wants to do with Aliyah because she can't play the rookie forever. Also, can we tell the designers for WWE shirts that 3.17 seconds is not the same thing as 3:17? Credit to Joel Pearl for pointing this discrepancy out. 

In other women's division news, Rousey officially challenged Charlotte to a SmackDown women's title match at WrestleMania after Sonya Deville teased her picking Becky Lynch.

We now know one of the big Mania matches, so WWE has a lot of time to build this up. Let's hope it's a satisfying storyline with a good payoff. 

After scoring a decisive win over Evil Uno, Cole delivered a passionate promo directed at the crowd. He was specifically talking to people who have criticized his booking in AEW up to this point.

This was all about Cole. There was no reDRagon and no Young Bucks. It was just Cole talking about how he is one of the best in the world and we are about to see a much more dangerous version of him.

It seems like he and his friends are about to stop playing around and start taking names. The first step should be for Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish to target the tag team champions. Cole can push them toward the titles while he chases Adam Page and the AEW World Heavyweight Championship. 

We will still see the fun-loving Cole on BTE and his own Twitch streams, but it seems like he is going to be more in line with his original heel character from NXT, which is going to be fun to watch without PG restrictions. 

Guevara retained the TNT Championship against Isiah Kassidy in the main event, but what happened after the match was over might have been more interesting.

As it looked like Matt Hardy and his cohorts were about to attack, Allin made his way down to provide some backup and drive the Hardy Family Office out of the ring.

The former TNT champion looked at the two title belts over Guevara's shoulders, patted them a few times and walked away. This was clearly setting up a showdown in the future between the two AEW originals.

Allin has been out of the TNT title scene for several months while he has engaged in other feuds and storylines, so it's nice to see AEW recommitting to his push as a potential champion. 

The next logical step is a tag team match. Allin and Guevara will probably team up against Private Party or Andrade El Idolo and Hardy. Either way, we should get some fun wrestling out of it.