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What's the story?
On the most recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed the backstage talk regarding AJ Styles winning the WWE Championship last night on SmackDown Live. He also discussed how it affects Survivor Series and WrestleMania going forward.
In case you didn't know...
When Styles defeated Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship to close SmackDown Live this week, it was the first time ever that the WWE Championship changed hands outside of North America. This week's edition of SmackDown Live took place at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
The heart of the matter...
There were rumours that John Cena was going to return to the WWE to be the special guest referee for Jinder Mahal v. Brock Lensar, but now since AJ Styles replaces Jinder, it doesn't make sense to put Cena in that spot. Previously Meltzer stated that Cena would be the special guest referee to set up an eventual feud with Jinder for the WWE Championship.
In regards to the sudden title change, Meltzer stated that the internal feeling was the fact that people were "crapping all over" the Lesnar v. Jinder match, but the sharp drop in last week's SmackDown rating was also a likely factor.
Last week's edition of SmackDown Live lost 500k viewers dropping from 2.699 million on October 24th to 2.119 million last week, the third lowest rating since the brand split.
What's next?
This week's edition of SmackDown Live will be the go-home show for Survivor Series. It takes place live at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Expect a promo from Styles responding to the likely comments from Lesnar on Monday as he will be in attendance.
Author's take...
Since that edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, the WWE announced that John Cena is the final member of Team SmackDown, playing off the fact that he's a free agent.
I'm torn between the reasoning behind the sudden card changes. Some think Vince is changing it up on the fly and reacting with haste, but remember Vince is a genius and may have planned an okay card to start for Survivor Series with the full intention of spicing it up on the road to the show on November 19th.
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