The Real Reason Kevin Owens Lost the United States Championship

08/31/2017 04:24 pm EDT

When Kevin Owens lost his US Championship to AJ Styles last week at a Madison Square Garden house show, the WWE Universe nearly exploded. With such shows being an exhibition by nature, an actual switching of the title caught everyone off-guard. Apparently, this wasn't WWE attempting to keep its fan base on its toes, it was a calculated audible.

According to an exclusive report from Sportskeeda, WWE called for this title switch because of redundancy in SmackDown's programming. As of last week, the Blue Brand had 3 foreigns heels, nearly all working under the same umbrella - America sucks. WWE saw this overbooking of jingoism and Kevin Owens was the easiest point of transition.

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WWE Champion, Jinder Mahal, has been bashing America for nearly 3 months now in his program with Randy Orton. Another chapter was added to the anti-American campaign when John Cena returned July 4th and was greeted by the Bulgarian Brute, Rusev. Before last Friday's Madison Square Garden Show, AJ Styles and Kevin Owens were embroiled in a patriotically themed feud over the US Championship.

That made for three eerily similar programs en route to WWE's Battleground. It wasn't subtle either, as it felt like Owens, Rusev, and Mahal were all reading from the same script. While going from three to two is an improvement, really WWE should never be running more than one of these storylines.

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Over the weekend, news broke about AJ Styles winning the US belt because it was to be used for footage on his upcoming DVD. While this is likely valid, this bit about Owens coming off of his anti-American soapbox seems like the truer impetus for the title switch.

For Owens, this a great. As a colorful personality, he's capable of far more than just bashing America. He's well versed in the craft of agitating fans and wrestlers alike, so his move away from the rudimentary psychology is a blessing. Although Owens is shifting his persona, he will not be pivoting off of Styles. The two will carry their feud into Battleground where they will have a contest for the US Championship. All indicators show that Styles will keep his new belt for a while, though, which means Kevin Owens will be moving on to a new partner, perhaps Shinsuke Nakamura. Stay tuned, folks.

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