WWE News: What happened after SmackDown went off the air

What’s the story?

The post-show dark segment at Tuesday night’s SmackDown and 205 Live tapings saw Randy Orton renew his acquaintance with WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. As reported by WrestlingInc,

Orton ended up beating Mahal via disqualification after -- yep, you guessed it -- the Singh Brothers interfered on behalf of the champ.

Randy Orton Vs Jinder Mahal [ SDL Dark Match ] ???..#Rasorton .(2#SDLive .pic.twitter.com/C7tsbW7bJ2

— The Legend Killer (@wwe3_news) August 23, 2017

In case you didn’t know…

Orton and Mahal are pretty familiar with one another by now. Over the past few months, they’ve faced each other three times on pay-per-view, first at Backlash, then Money in the Bank, and most recently at Battleground.

On each of those three occasions, Mahal won, but only off the back of some sort of interference. By now, they could pretty much run the 'Mahal-wins-via-DQ-finish' blindfolded. In fact, that may actually make for a more entertaining match than some of their recent efforts.

The heart of the matter

As per the report, Orton was on the verge of pinning Mahal, only for the Singh Brothers to hit the ring and beat him down.

That forced the DQ, allowed the champ to scarper, and inevitably led to Orton eventually getting the better of the Singh Brothers, ending the evening with the upper hand.

Orton hadn’t featured on the SmackDown show from earlier in the evening, though the Singh Brothers had taken a trouncing at the hands of Shinsuke Nakamura, so fair play to them for coming back for double duty.

What's next?

Orton facing Mahal in the dark segment was likely born out of convenience as opposed to being a sign of things to come.

For starters, they’ve already gone at it more than enough times, and with Orton and Mahal both fresh from a night off, it made sense to pair them together for the post-show match.

Mercifully, don’t take this as an indication that they’re revitalising the Orton vs. Mahal programme.

Author’s take

Again, don’t read anything into Orton facing Mahal. After all, Nakamura’s still well in contention for a rematch with the champion in the near future.

What’s arguably more interesting about this news is that Orton was clearly available for SmackDown, but they didn’t choose to use him, and at a time when people were expecting some follow-up to his bizarre ten-second victory over Rusev at SummerSlam.

Maybe something's planned for next week instead, or maybe they're just hoping we forget that they even sanctioned that outcome at all.