WWE News: Shane McMahon Announces Huge Championship Match For ‘SmackDown Live’
On Thursday, a major WWE announcement was made as SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon booked a huge championship match for the coming week. The latest match will take place in the United Kingdom next week, with one of the top superstars in the company getting his shot at the biggest prize the blue brand currently has to offer. That’s right; the WWE Championship will be on the line with AJ Styles trying to reclaim the title he once held. Looking ahead, the outcome of this huge SmackDown match could also lead to a “dream match” at the WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view.
According to his tweet earlier on Thursday afternoon, Commissioner Shane McMahon has just booked “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles to challenge “The Modern Day Maharaja” Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship. The decision was made after Mahal viciously attacked AJ during this past week’s episode of SmackDown Live. Fans already had a good idea that AJ Styles would be next in line to take on Mahal for the title, although the next scheduled bout for Jinder Mahal is at Survivor Series against WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar. As of this report, neither of the titles are on the line for that particular match, which is billed as “Champion vs. Champion.”
There was a recent Styles vs. Mahal match that took place at WWE’s Raleigh, North Carolina show several days ago. In that match, the title wasn’t on the line, but Styles managed to fight off The Singh Brothers and captured the victory with a Phenomenal Forearm. That seemed to be a practice match ahead of their upcoming program, which looks like it will launch in the weeks ahead of the Survivor Series PPV.
Due to @JinderMahal vicious attack on @AJStylesOrg, he will defend the #WWEChampionship against AJ this Tues. in Manchester, UK on #SDLive.
— Shane McMahon (@shanemcmahon) November 2, 2017
The most intriguing aspect of this match is that should Jinder Mahal lose on Tuesday, it could mean AJ Styles is the new WWE Champion. That would mean that Styles could be the one heading to Survivor Series to battle “The Beast” Brock Lesnar. It would make for “back-to-back” dream matches for Styles, who had his first encounter with Finn Balor in the ring at last month’s WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view.
Fans would probably go crazy for an AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar match, but it seems unlikely that it’s in the plans for WWE; at least not in the near future. Still, Styles and Cena are currently the co-favorites to become next WWE Champion after Jinder Mahal. One of the two seems destined to do it, but it seems more likely that WWE is pushing Mahal going into WrestleMania as a longtime champion. “The Modern Day Maharaja” even tweeted his reaction to the upcoming title match claiming they’ll just “make an example” out of AJ again, which seems to point toward The Singh Brothers interfering.
The AJ Styles vs. Jinder Mahal championship match joins the other championship match booked for next Tuesday. In that matchup, The Usos defend the WWE SmackDown tag team titles against Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin. WWE fans will be able to see these matches take place on Tuesday, November 7th during the SmackDown Live show on USA Network at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
[Featured Image by WWE]
