When the WWE Superstar Shake-up took place a few weeks ago, many people thought that AJ Styles would be moving to Monday Night Raw, but the Phenomenal One ended up staying on SmackDown Live. Instead it was Kevin Owens who moved from Raw to SmackDown, and he brought his United States Championship with him.
AJ Styles earned the right to challenge the United States Champion at Backlash, but his opponent was up in the air for a little while. Chris Jericho won the United States Title at Payback, and WWE officially booked Styles vs. Jericho for Backlash. However, Owens won the title back on the following episode of SmackDown, and he put himself on a collision course with AJ Styles.
For weeks now AJ Styles and Kevin Owens have been taunting each other on Tuesday nights, and at WWE Backlash they finally clashed.
AJ Styles and Kevin Owens definitely delivered as they took each other to the limit from bell to bell. Owens focused on AJ’s right leg throughout the match and AJ sold the attack by convincing everyone that his leg was hurt.
The action spilled to the outside and AJ Styles hit Kevin Owens with the Phenomenal Forearm. Styles set Kevin Owens up for the Styles Clash on the announce table, but Owens got out of it and returned to the ring.
As AJ was trying to go after Owens, his leg got wrapped up in a cable at the announce table, and he couldn’t make it back into the ring in time so he was counted out.
Kevin Owens retained the title then attacked AJ one more time before leaving. AJ continued to sell the injury, and he was helped to the back as he got a standing ovation.
After the match the commentators talked about how “crazy” the ending was.
