Possible Reasons Why WWE Booked AJ Styles vs. Jinder Mahal for Next Week

During today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Live, Dave Meltzer discussed WWE’s decision to change AJ Styles’ match against Rusev on next week’s SmackDown Live to a match against Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship instead. Meltzer speculated the following scenarios at to why the company made the changes:

One scenario is that Jinder Mahal is hurt and they need to get the title off him. Mahal was wearing Kinesio tape at WWE events but he denied to ESPN that he’s working hurt.

Another scenario is that no one really cares to see Jinder Mahal vs. Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, so putting the title on Styles would gain more interest in the pay-per-view.

The last scenario that Meltzer discussed was that the company panicked over Tuesday’s low rating/viewership. They may have booked Styles vs. Mahal just to get people to tune in next week, but not actually have plans to change the title.