In what’s been an interesting week in WWE, AJ Styles pulled out with one of the more surprising results this year as he dethroned Kevin Owens to become the new United States Champion at a house show.

The WWE data breach rightfully hit the headlines, while fans were left stunned by the sudden departure of Austin Aries following his stint in the company which was limited to 205 Live.

TITLE CHANGE

However, The Phenomenal One’s surprising victory has shifted the focus away from that as he battled Owens at a Monday Night RAW live event in Madison Square Garden.

SIGN UP NOW

Want to become a GMS writer? Sign up now and submit a 250-word test article: http://gms.to/haveyoursay4

Styles won the Independence Day battle royal on SmackDown LIVE earlier this week, which meant he’d be heading to the Battleground event to face off against Owens, but now that’s up in the air following the sudden decision to crown Styles the new champion at a live event – something you don’t usually see happen.

In fact, the last big change saw Samoa Joe dethrone Finn Balor to become NXT Champion for the first time in his career.

However, there appears to be a reason for WWE making the switch and Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter recently discussed the title change on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Live.

While Meltzer admitted that he doesn’t know for sure why things unfolded the way they did, he claimed that the title change was a very late decision made by WWE officials.

SPECULATION

Another interesting note was that WWE had the match at a RAW live event, rather than saving it for SmackDown, and Meltzer also speculated on why WWE might have gone down this route.

He claims that Owens was injured at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, where he featured in the main event ladder match which was eventually won by Baron Corbin.

Regardless of that, Owens has been working events while hurt and suggested that Owens might have had his injuries checked out recently, and realised that they could be much worse than originally thought.

If that’s the case, then WWE might have pulled the trigger on a title change earlier than planned.

Questions will be raised as to what the plans could be for Battleground, as it’s unclear how long Owens could be out of action for – if at all.

There’s still time left until the blue brand hosts its next event, so it’s possible that Owens gets a rematch at Battleground as he doesn’t really need to be in action until then.

If Meltzer is correct here, then it probably would have made more sense to have Styles pick up the win on an episode of SmackDown LIVE, as he would have gotten over even more and it would have also boosted their ratings.

Now we have to wait and see how the remainder of this feud unfolds.

What do you make of the possible reason WWE had AJ Styles defeat Kevin Owens? Have YOUR say in the comments section below and the fourth episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here! Check it out via this link: https://soundcloud.com/user-818579649/gms-wwe-podcast-money-in-the-bank-fallout

Do YOU want to write for GiveMeSport? Get started today by signing up and submitting an article HERE: http://gms.to/writeforgms