WWE pulled off an extremely shocking move on last night’s (Tues. November 7, 2017) SmackDown Live when AJ Styles defeated Jinder Mahal to become the new WWE Champion in the main event. Styles will now take on Brock Lesnar at the WWE’s Survivor Series pay-per-view (PPV) event from Houston, Texas on November 19th.
Per a report from Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio, he received word from someone in India several weeks back that the WWE was promoting Jinder Mahal as a two-time WWE Champion for their upcoming tour. Meltzer noted that this promotion has nothing to do with the decision to make Styles WWE Champion, as the decision to make the title change was made only a week ago.
People who were supposed to know about the title change didn’t know about it until this week, and Meltzer himself didn’t find out about it until the morning of SmackDown. Meltzer confirmed that WWE “absolutely” planned to have Jinder Mahal champion heading into their India tour, and there’s still a chance that could happen. AJ isn’t scheduled to be a part of that tour; and it’s likely the decision to have AJ win the title was a last-minute one given that Styles was initially advertised to be taking on Rusev for a spot on SmackDown Live’s Survivor Series team.
