SPOILERS: Something Massive Just Happened At The SmackDown Tapings
(I’m just writing this line here because I think when you embed blogs into tweets, it’ll automatically put in a little bit of the blog and I’m not trying to spoil SmackDown for anyone who’d like to go in unspoiled. Do you think this is enough writing? Hopefully? Yeah it should be good. Okay, let’s celebrate!)
IT’S OVER! THE HORRENDOUS, HORRENDOUS, AWFUL WWE CHAMPIONSHIP REIGN OF JINDER “THE MAHARAJA” MAHAL IS OVER!!!
Since the WWE is in the UK this week, they’ve been pre-recording RAW and SmackDown (so the fans aren’t asleep) and Carrabis and I were able to find a UK satellite feed of SmackDown to watch the main event, Jinder Mahal vs AJ Styles, on my phone. It was a good match, definitely Jinder’s best ever, that featured some brutal bumps by Styles and some overly stiff shots from the Maharaja. It closed with a sequence where the Singh Brothers got involved by pulling Jinder out of the ring, so AJ went to the outside and beat the fuck out of them. Jinder hit his finish on a distracted Styles, the pinfall was broken by a foot on the rope, and AJ capitalized with a Phenomenal Forearm, making him a two-time WWE Champion, and inserting him into the main event of Survivor Series against Brock Lesnar.
This is the first time in forever that Brock is going to be used in a match everyone can’t wait for, and is actually a fresh matchup. I’ve been a little down on AJ’s in-ring work this year, because let’s face it, the 2017 body of work isn’t great, but when he turns it on like he did against Cena in January, Shane in April, and Finn/Jinder in the past few weeks, he’s undoubtably one of the best in the world. I’m pumped, and we’ll talk way more about this on tomorrow’s From The Top Rope with special guest Daniel Cormier.
P.S. I don’t know what caused this sudden title change, whether it was a backlash to the Brock match or what, but I don’t think it’s outrageous to suggest Jinder may have failed a wellness test. Just sayin’.
P.P.S. RAW recap is on it’s way, this got me off track.