Update on the Finish of AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens at Battleground

The outcome of the Kevin Owens vs. AJ Syles match at Battleground this past Sunday night saw Owens defeat Styles to regain his United States Championship. The finish of the match managed to leave some fans bewildered a bit as both men seemed to have their shoulders pinned to the mat. In the midst of all of the chaos, the referee eventually decided that Owens was the winner and then his music began to play. AJ Styles was left in the ring looking baffled for quite a while before the company moved onto the next match for the evening. Some seem to believe that something went wrong in this Battleground finish, but what happened exactly?
While some believe that the finish of the match was botched, others believe that WWE did plan for the match to end this way all along. Dave Meltzer believes that the outcome was changed at the last minute by WWE to have Owens win back the title. Cageside Seats backed this up when they claimed that the outcome was decided during the Battleground pay-per-view. Owens had his music cued and ready to go by the time that the match was over, so it doesn’t appear as though this match was botched at all. While Owens was set to regain the US Championship during the show, no explanation was given for why the finish went down the way that it did, but it appears to have been planned.
Kevin Owens is now the United States Champion and “Face of America” once again. It is also worth noting that Styles was favored -4950 in betting odds to win. Styles was the only favored winner among betters to not actually come out victorious. It is possible that WWE simply changed the finish as a way to swerve all of the betting odds going into the show. In any case, this will probably lead to another rematch between Styles and Owens for the title at SummerSlam next month. We’ll have to wait and see how they address the outcome of the match on Smackdown and online over the next couple of weeks leading up to the big summer event.