Ever since the brand extension came into full effect last year, WWE has done a great job of ensuring the rosters are kept as far apart as possible.Obviously, we had the special scenario at Survivor Series where the two brands were pitted against each other, along with SmackDown LIVE’s Randy Orton failing to overcome Monday Night RAW’s Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam last year.

SMACKDOWN HOUSE SHOW

Since then, it’s been quite surprising to see anyone from either brand appearing on the rival show.

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However, that’s exactly what we got at a SmackDown LIVE house show on Saturday night in Vancouver, when RAW star Seth Rollins made a surprise appearance to challenge WWE Champion Jinder Mahal.

The Kingslayer was recently revealed by 2K as the latest cover star for WWE 2K18, and has recently been engaged in a feud with Bray Wyatt and the two are set to do battle at the inaugural Great Balls of Fire event.

So, it was quite surprising to see Rollins appear in Vancouver when you’d assume he’d be working opposite the Eater of Worlds instead.

SURPRISE APPEARANCE

During the event, The Modern Day Maharaja came out alongside the sneaky Singh Brothers to address the crowd. The Architect then made the surprise appearance to a massive reaction from the fans – he then cut a promo before having a match against Mahal for the WWE Championship.

You can watch Rollins’ promo in the video below.

The Singh Brothers interfered in the match, causing Rollins to win via disqualification which meant Mahal retained his WWE Championship.

However, as you’ll be able to see below, Rollins had the last laugh as he took care of business by wiping all three of them out; attacking Sunil and Samir with turnbuckle powerbombs and then followed it up with a huge powerbomb through the table on Jinder.

While it could have just been a nice surprise for the fans, a tweet by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has raised speculation on why WWE changed the match.

According to Meltzer, the original match was supposed to feature Shinsuke Nakamura challenging Mahal, but that was changed to Rollins instead.

He tweeted: “Interesting note, tonight’s WWE main event in Vancouver was to be Jinder vs. Nakamura for title, changed to Jinder vs. Seth.”

While there’s no concrete answer to why that was changed, fans are speculating that it could be visa issues which prevented him from competing or even travelling.

Still, Rollins isn’t a bad substitute, even if he did end up losing the match.

What do you make of Seth Rollins’ surprise appearance at a SmackDown LIVE house show? Have YOUR say in the comments section below and the third episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here! Check it out via this link. https://soundcloud.com/user-818579649/gms-wwe-podcast-all-the-fallout-from-wwe-payback

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