Backstage News On AJ Styles Being Originally Set to Win Universal Title at SummerSlam & Other SummerSlam Card Changes

– According to the WON, original plans for SummerSlam had AJ Styles set to win the new WWE Universal Title as a Smackdown championship. The site reports that Raw was originally going to get the WWE Championship and that Smackdown would have had the Universal Title with Styles becoming the inaugural champion.

Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins would have been the WWE Championship match, and Reigns’ Wellness violation was what caused the change as WWE wanted to punish him by pushing him lower on the card.

Other changes for the show included Finn Balor originally being set to face Chris Jericho and a planned Baron Corbin vs. Kalisto match being dropped due to there already being so many matches on the show.