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What's the story?
After Dolph Ziggler appeared to relinquish the United States Title after winning it at Clash of Champions, SmackDown LIVE General Manager Daniel Bryan announced there would be a tournament to crown the new United States Champion. The WWE recently released the bracket for the tournament on social media.
In case you didn't know...
We'd already seen two of the four first-round matches with Bobby Roode defeating Baron Corbin to advance, and Jinder Mahal taking down Tye Dillinger to move on to the next round. However, the above video revealed that the other two matches would be a continuation of the feud between Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder and the obscure pair of Xavier Woods vs Aiden English.
The heart of the matter
However, it appears that Xavier Woods had no idea he'd be participating in the United States Title Tournament and only found out when Cathy Kelly released the bracket, meaning he found out at the same time as the WWE Universe did.
As you can see from the Instagram Video that Woods posted on his social media account he's clearly elated by the surprise news, as are his New Day tag-team partners.
What's next?
I'd wager that Woods has a decent chance of advancing through to the next round given that he or Aiden English are set to face Jinder Mahal in the Semi-Finals and it makes more sense to have a face vs heel match.
The finals of the tournament will take place at the Royal Rumble, however, it remains to be seen who will be competing in the final singles match of the tournament.
Author's take
I'm not sure what this kind of thing says about WWE's creative writing, surely if they're writing storylines and putting people in tournaments then those Superstars should have been informed, right? I'm also not sure what it says for Xavier Wood's chances of winning, but we'll see.
