WWE Smackdown Preview: 5 Things to Look for in Tonight's Episode (May 25)

Tonight, the WWE lays the smack down on the WWE Universe.

Scratch that—it lays Friday Night SmackDown on us.

We're only hours away from the first episode of SmackDown since Sunday's Over the Limit pay-per-view, which means that this is the first official step for the blue brand on the road to No Way Out.

Unless you have a social life (I don't), I'm sure you'll be watching intently tonight on SmackDownn. 

But even if you're DVRing the show and watching it at a later date, that doesn't mean you can't be well informed about what may happen on tonight's show.

Here are five things you should look for in the May 25th edition of Friday Night SmackDown.

NOTE: I will not reveal the results of any matches, but some things I do talk about will give you a pretty good indication of what happened earlier in the show. So, STOP reading if you like to be completely surprised because this article does contain SOME PARTIAL SPOILERS.

5. Damien Sandow in Action

Damien Sandow is scheduled to wrestle a match on tonight's SmackDown, but he's been scheduled to do that twice before and still hasn't had an actual match.

He refused to get in the ring with Derrick Bateman, did the same with Yoshi Tatsu and then laid a brutal beatdown on Tatsu afterward.

On tonight's SmackDown, however, Sandow is indeed scheduled once again to wrestle Tatsu.

The question, of course, is: Will he?

It seems like Sandow has taken pleasure in teasing that he will wrestle but not actually doing so, so it will be interesting to see if he competes in his first WWE match tonight or makes us wait another week.

And if he does indeed take on Tatsu, will he pick up his first victory in the WWE?

4. What's Next for the Tag Team Division?

SmackDown has become the unofficial home of the WWE's tag team division.

We've seen in-ring action and outside-the-ring interaction between a number of duos on the blue brand, including WWE Tag Team Champions Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, Epico and Primo, the Usos and the Primetime Players.

Kingston and Truth ended the winning streak of Titus O'Neil and Darren Young on last week's SmackDown and successfully defended their titles against Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger at Over the Limit, but Epico and Primo still have yet to enact their rematch clause.

Plus, the Usos are still hanging around, Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks are beginning to make some noise, and Young and O'Neil haven't been shy about the fact that they want tag team gold.

With the tag team division suddenly getting a little crowded, I'll be keeping my eye on what happens on tonight's SmackDown and which tag team(s) may step up as the next No. 1 contenders for the WWE Tag Team tiles.

3. The Start of Christian's Baby Face and Intercontinental Title Run

Over the Limit was pretty predictable, except for one major surprise: the return of Christian.

Christian came back at the pay-per-view as a baby face, won a show-opening battle royal and then beat Cody Rhodes to become the new Intercontinental champion.

Captain Charisma has been out of action since last November, so his return and baby face turn have definitely shaken things up on the blue brand.

You would have to assume that his first feud will be with Rhodes over the Intercontinental title, and I'll be on the lookout to see if Christian can hold off Rhodes during his fourth run with the belt.

Of course, it'll also be fun to see how the crowd reacts to Christian as a baby face and what's going to happen now that he's holding SmackDown's midcard title.

2. The Fallout from This Week's Raw and Over the Limit

A lot has happened over the course of the past six days.

Sheamus retained his world heavyweight championship, Christian turned baby face and beat Cody Rhodes for the Intercontinental title, The Big Show helped John Laurinaitis beat John Cena at Over the Limit and turned heel and so on and so forth.

All of the things that happened at both Over the Limit and on Monday's Raw are going to continue to affect the WWE on tonight's SmackDown.

There is going to be a ton of fallout from what went down with Big Show, Sheamus, Christian and others, and that's going to shape the structure of tonight's Show.

We should see the start of some new rivalries, the continuation of some others and major updates on some of the WWE's biggest angles as we head toward No Way Out.

1. A Match to Determine the New No. 1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Title

Sheamus successfully retained the world heavyweight championship in that great Fatal 4-Way at Over the Limit, but as SmackDown's world champion, he doesn't get a break.

The Great White is always going to have new challengers looking to end his world title reign, and on tonight's SmackDown, he is going to find out who his next No. 1 contender is.

The winner of the main event match will become Sheamus' next challenger and will kick off his next feud.

Will it be a familiar face or a new challenger entirely?

You've got to watch tonight's SmackDown (or read the spoilers) to find out.

Drake Oz is the WWE Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions (to be answered in the B/R Mailbag) on Formspring.