What’s the story?
Tonight’s episode of SmackDown concluded with Randy Orton defeating AJ Styles to remain the number one contender for Bray Wyatt’s WWE Championship.
This confirms the match between Orton and Wyatt as a one-on-one encounter as opposed to the rumoured triple threat match with Luke Harper.
In case you didn’t know...
Orton won the 2017 Royal Rumble and earned the right to fight for either the Universal Championship or the WWE Championship. A few weeks later at Elimination Chamber, Wyatt won the WWE Championship in the Elimination Chamber match, which prompted Orton to declare he wouldn’t fight Wyatt for the title.
However, Orton would reveal his true intentions last week by burning Sister Abigail’s resting place to the ground and declaring he would fight the WWE Championship.
On the other hand, a 10-Man Battle Royal was made a few weeks ago to determine a new #1 contender for the title once Orton announced he wouldn’t fight for the WWE Championship. The match ended in a draw between Styles and Harper and another match was booked to determine a #1 contender.
After a referee bump that was interrupted by Commissioner Shane McMahon, Styles would defeat Harper with a 450 Splash to become the new #1 contender.
The heart of the matter
Fans expected Orton to defeat Styles and become the #1 Contender for the title, but the fact that it happened with a clean finish, has some interesting implications for the rumoured match between Styles and Shane McMahon. However, all this changed after Styles confronted McMahon backstage after SmackDown.
The footage was shown after 205 Live and AJ asked Shane rather angrily if the match that just happened was really an opportunity.
What’s next?
SmackDown has three weeks until WrestleMania so they’ll have to announce something next week to give both feuds (Orton vs. Wyatt and Style vs. McMahon) enough of a buildup after the fact. Hopefully, the WWE does a good enough job building to the matches so that fans can get invested.
Sportskeeda’s take
It will be interesting to see how Styles continues to deal with McMahon following their encounter backstage and it will also be interesting to see how Wyatt reacts to facing Orton at ‘Mania after having no screen time on this week’s episode.
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