Jinder Mahal Possibly Not Defending the WWE Title at SummerSlam

As seen at Sunday’s WWE Battleground event, The Great Khali returned to the company and helped assist Jinder Mahal retain his WWE Championship Title against Randy Orton in a Punjabi Prison match.

Bryan Alvarez mentioned on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Live that the company could be moving towards a tag match between The Great Khali and Randy Orton at this year’s SummerSlam. It was noted earlier today that Khali was brought back to the company to help get Jinder over. If a tag match at SummerSlam is the plan, that would mean that Jinder would be teaming with Khali at the event. This would also mean that the WWE Championship title will not be defended on the card.

We should have a clearer understand after Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live in the direction the company is going. The original plan was for Mahal to defend the WWE Championship against John Cena but those plans could now be off the table.

Main Event Announced for WWE SummerSlam

Kurt Angle announced in the opening segment of tonight’s RAW that Brock Lesnar would be defending his WWE Universal Championship title in a Fatal 4-Way at SummerSlam against Roman Reigns, Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman. Here is the updated card:

WWE Universal Championship
Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns

SmackDown Women’s Championship
Naomi vs. Natalya

WWE SummerSlam will take place on August 20, 2017, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. As always, we will have live coverage of the event.

X-Pac 1, 2, 360 Recap w/ Alex Riley – WWE Release, Pursuing A Career in Acting, Will He Wrestle Again? More!

X-Pac opens today’s show speaking about Shane McMahon’s forced helicopter landing from last week. He says that it didn’t surprise him for a second that Shane came out of that incident uninjured, and it was amazing to see how calm Shane was when he was being interviewed after the fact.

Speaking about last Monday night’s revelation that Jason Jordan is Kurt Angle’s son, X-Pac says for a minute he thought the whole thing might have been a shoot. He says that Angle is known to have had relationships with African American women in the past, and the age gap definitely works out.

X-Pac welcomes Kevin Kiley Jr. (Alex Riley) to the show.

Riley says that he was always a big fan of X-Pac from his time in WWE during the attitude era, and X-Pac always came off as a very real character who had a natural confidence in himself. X-Pac thanks him and says that he was never one to cut a masterful promo, but he was able to make his character work in different ways.

Riley informs that after he parted ways with WWE he immediately wanted to pursue acting. He says that his short stint at broadcasting in NXT was fun, but at the end of the day he wanted to venture out on his own. He was lucky to garner some interest in Hollywood right away and he soon landed a role in the Netflix series GLOW.

New Match Added to WWE SummerSlam

Bayley defeated Sasha Banks to earn a shot at the RAW Women’s Championship against Alexa Bliss at the upcoming WWE SummerSlam event.Here is the updated card:

WWE Universal Championship
Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns

RAW Women’s Championship
Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley

SmackDown Women’s Championship
Naomi vs. Natalya

WWE SummerSlam will take place on August 20, 2017, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. As always, we will have live coverage of the event.

Big Match & Segment Announced for Next Week’s RAW

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Roman Reigns Reacts to Dead Crowd at WWE Battleground

As seen at Sunday’s WWE Battleground event, the crowd was noticeably quiet for a majority of the evening with. Someone would argue it would have a lot to do with the show being one of the worst pay-per-view events of 2017 and even some are saying in recent WWE history.

Roman Reigns took to his Twitter account to react to the crowd reactions the event received. He sent out the following tweet:

Jinder Mahal Teases Match Against John Cena

After his victory against Randy Orton at Sunday’s WWE Battleground event, WWE Champion Jinder Mahal spoke with Indian Express and teased a possible match against John Cena.

“I put the ‘vipers’ legacy to rest. I beat a fourteen time World Champion three times in a row. Whose legacy am I going to put to rest – maybe John Cena. He has a legacy of his own, I would like love nothing more than to use his legacy as a stepping stone and cement my own legacy.”

It’s been rumored for a while now that they may actually compete against each other over of the WWE Championship at this year’s SummerSlam. It should be known what direction they are going with the WWE Championship title at SummerSlam after this week’s SmackDown Live episode.

Jinder Mahal Reacts to The Great Khali’s WWE Return

After his victory against Randy Orton at Sunday’s WWE Battleground event, WWE Champion Jinder Mahal spoke with Indian Express and talked about The Great Khali’s return to WWE.

“Not only on SmackDown live but also on the entire WWE, I run the show and call the shots. With the Great Khali behind me, I am truly unstoppable. I have a great relationship with Khali, he is like my older brother. As Indians, we stick together. He was the first person I contacted after announcing the Punjabi Prison Match. We are in contact all the time and he is one of my role models and I want to follow his footsteps. He has helped put India on the map of WWE and I hope he is happy with my performance at Battleground.”

As previously noted, WWE decided to bring Khali in to help give Jinder a rub. The feeling right now is that Jinder isn’t very popular in India, despite being WWE Champion. The belief is that aligning Jinder with Khali will help him in the long run in-terms of popularity in India.

Brock Lesnar’s Status for Tonight’s RAW Episode

Brock Lesnar is not scheduled to make an appearance on tonight’s episode of RAW.

Kurt Angle is expected to announce plans for Lesnar defending the WWE Universal Title at WWE SummerSlam tonight. It’s being rumored that he will be announcing a Fatal 4-Way for the Championship.

Here is the current list of WWE dates Lesnar is confirmed for:

SmackDown Live Event: July 29th (Detroit, MI)
RAW: July 31st (Pittsburgh, PA)
SmackDown Live Event: August 12th (Tampa, FL)
RAW: August 14th (Boston, MA)
SummerSlam: August 20th (Brooklyn, NY)
RAW: August 28th (Memphis, TN)
WWE No Mercy: September 24th (Los Angeles, CA)
RAW Live Event: September 30th (Winnipeg, MB)

Favorites to Win at Tonight’s WWE Battleground Event

There have been several shifts in the betting odds for tonight’s WWE Battleground event. “Smart Money” bets still have not been made, but here are the odds right now:

(Note: The lower the number, the more favorable they are of winning the match)

WWE Championship – Punjabi Prison Match
JJinder Mahal(c) -260 (favorite) vs. Randy Orton +180

WWE United States Championship
AJ Styles(c) -210 (favorite) vs. Kevin Owens +160

Smackdown Tag Team Championship
The Usos(c) -215 (favorites) vs. The New Day +165

Flag Match
John Cena -1125 (favorite) vs. Rusev +575

Fatal 5 Way for the Smackdown Women’s Championship #1 Contendership

Charlotte +195 vs. Lana +3000 vs. Becky Lynch +2100 vs. Tamina +4500 vs. Natalya -215

Shinsuke Nakamura -270 (favorite) vs. Baron Corbin +190

Sami Zayn +135 vs. Mike Kanellis -175 (favorite)

Aiden English +330 vs. Tye Dillenger -490 (favorite)

Check back here at 7PM ET for our live play-by-play coverage of the event.