Possible Reason For WWE Championship Match On SmackDown Live

AJ Styles is jumping the gun to challenge Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship next week on SmackDown Live. It’s a blockbuster of an announcement for sure but it begs us to question why this decision was made in the first place.

After all, The Modern Day Maharaja was set to defend his WWE Championship in front of his people in India during WWE’s tour of his homeland in December. But maybe WWE got all they wanted when Mahal went over there with the title to promote the upcoming tour?

Jinder Mahal is also in a highly publicized match at Survivor Series and rumors are John Cena could on his way to the match as a special referee. But anything can change in WWE.

Jinder Mahal’s run with the WWE Championship seemed to be getting stronger each week. Things might have become a bit weird challenging Brock Lesnar but AJ Styles was likely his opponent at Royal Rumble until WWE flipped the script on us.

Dave Meltzer spoke about this interesting choice to hold the WWE Championship match so suddenly on Wrestling Observer Live where he hypothesized two likely scenarios.

It could be likely Jinder Mahal has been working hurt for the past several weeks. He’s been wearing Kinesio tape on his shoulder during live shows and even though Mahal told ESPN he wasn’t injured or working injured some people aren’t buying it.

Another theory is more of a logistical one because WWE might have realized Jinder Mahal vs Brock Lesnar isn’t a match too many people are going to care about as a marquee match for Survivor Series. Therefore a decision is being made to put the title on AJ Styles.

It’s interesting to note that in both of Meltzer’s theories Jinder Mahal is dropping his title. For all we know, he might win this match and this could be a great ploy for a ratings boost. But it certainly makes the next episode of SmackDown Live even more interesting, to say the least.