Following his surprising heel turn at Sunday night's WWE TLC event, James Ellsworth made a special appearance on the post-TLC edition of "Talking Smack" to announce that SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon had granted him an opportunity to face AJ Styles for the WWE World Championship on this coming Tuesday night's edition of SmackDown Live.

Ellsworth also took the opportunity to explain his actions during the main event at TLC, in which he prevented Dean Ambrose from winning the WWE World Championship by pushing him off of a ladder and through tables that were set up at ringside. Ellsworth stated that he got involved because he truly felt that he himself could defeat Styles for the title since he has already defeated him on three separate occasions, which is what led to him asking Shane for the title match on this week's upcoming SmackDown Live.