What’s the story?
On this past week’s edition of SmackDown LIVE, United States Champion Kevin Owens announced a “Face of America Challenge“ with the United States Championship on the line. AJ Styles answered the challenge and was told by Owens that the challenge was for Daytona residents only. Styles subsequently took a seat at the announce table.
After his victory over Chad Gable, who Styles had approved of as an eligible competitor for the challenge, Owens gave a backstage interview and said that AJ Styles was “sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong” by coming out to his challenge. The video of the interview can be seen below:
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In case you didn’t know...
Kevin Owens is the current United States Champion, a title that he had originally won from Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 33.
After being drafted to SmackDown LIVE as a part of the Superstar Shake-Up, Owens lost his US title to Chris Jericho at WWE’s Payback 2017 PPV on 30th April 2017. Owens won the title back, however, on the 2nd May 2017 edition of SmackDown LIVE.
Subsequently, Kevin Owens squared off against AJ Styles at Backlash 2017 with the US Championship on the line. Owens defended his championship via count-out after Styles’ foot became stuck on the announce table.
The heart of the matter
Owens came out on SmackDown LIVE and stated that he was going to truly make SmackDown LIVE the land of opportunity by giving a chance to a “lucky individual” from Dayton, Ohio a chance at his US title.
AJ Styles came out and confronted Owens, stating that all he wanted was to do him for the United States Championship. Owens called AJ Styles a “rude American” and told him that he wasn’t from Dayton, Ohio and thus wasn’t eligible for the challenge.
Chad Gable then came out and told Kevin Owens that the arena itself was his home, AJ Styles approved of the statement, announced the match himself and assumed the position of a guest commentator for the match. After the match got over, Styles got up from his chair and taunted a retreating Owens.
Also read: WWE News: Reason why Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles ended via count-out
In the backstage interview, Kevin Owens said that the title would stay with him regardless of whether Chad Gable, “some idiot from Ohio” or The Phenomenal AJ Styles challenged him for it. Owens also stated that he had expected AJ Styles “sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong”.
The pre-match arguments, the match itself, and the backstage promo, all point towards the WWE teasing a feud between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens over the United States Championship, with several recent rumours also pointing towards the same.
What’s next?
WWE’s next SmackDown-exclusive pay-per-view is Battleground 2017, which will be taking place on 23rd July 2017. With a month to go till the pay-per-view, the WWE should have ample time to have a feud between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens take off.
Should the two men end up squaring off at Battleground, it would be the second time that they’d have done so for the US Championship.
Author’s take
Kevin Owens and AJ Styles are both incredible wrestlers who know how to tell a story and a feud between the two just makes the most sense right now.
The US title picture doesn’t really have anyone else at the moment and it would be great to see Owens and Styles be put into a proper feud which could very well end up culminating at SummerSlam 2017.
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