As you have likely heard by now, Jinder Mahal will defend his WWE Championship next week against AJ Styles on Smackdown. Shane McMahon announced the news and cited Jinder’s attack on Styles this past week as the reason for the match. This was a bit strange considering Styles already had a match for Smackdown against Rusev. The winner would earn themselves a place on Team Shane at Survivor Series.
So why the change?
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Live (subscribe here), speculated that WWE changing plans and having Styles challenge Mahal next week could be due to one of the following reasons.
If AJ wins the title, it might because they came to the conclusion that nobody wants to see Jinder vs Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series and they feel like Styles vs Lesnar would be the bigger match to boost the card. Also, it might be because Jinder is hurt and they want the title off him. Jinder has been spotted wearing kinesio tape but has publicly denied that he is injured.
If AJ loses, this match was likely made because WWE wanted to do something for a ratings boost after getting poor numbers this week against Halloween and the World Series.
It certainly is a bit of a strange move since AJ already had a match in place. Also, Smackdown Live will be taped since the show is in Manchester, England. Would a title change on a taped show boost ratings? Something is certainly up but we can only speculate for now.
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