AJ Styles shocked the wrestling world on Tuesday night, defeating Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship. This was a big surprise, considering WWE’s live events in India are just around the corner. Many fans thought that Jinder would be walking into those events as WWE Champion.
Here are a few more details on when the decision was made to take the title off Jinder Mahal.
Why did AJ beat Jinder?
Bryan Alvarez mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio (subscribe here), that someone from India contacted him months ago to say that there were advertisements (in India) calling Jinder Mahal a two-time WWE Champion. Dave Meltzer responded by saying that the ad would play no part since the decision to change the title was made only a week ago.
Meltzer says that the people who need to know in WWE literally found out about the title change this week. Meltzer himself says that he didn’t know the title change was going to happen until the morning of Smackdown.
Also, Meltzer mentioned that the original plan was “absolutely” for Jinder to go into the India shows as Champion. There is still a chance that they could put the belt back on him at the India shows but AJ currently isn’t scheduled for that tour.
There will likely be more details over the next few days but all indications seem to be that this was a last-minute decision by WWE. Especially since AJ was originally scheduled to face Rusev on Smackdown Live for the 5th spot on Team Smackdown. Something certainly seems to have changed Vince McMahon’s mind.
Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
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As we all know and are accustomed to… champions have “rematch clauses”. I suspect they’ll put it back on Jinder rather timely with the help of the singh bros.