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WWE Smackdown: AJ Styles defends U.S. title against Kevin Owens

By Wade Sheridan
United States Champion AJ Styles (R) defended his U.S. title against Kevin Owens (L) one final time Tuesday on Smackdown with Baron Corbin selected by Owens to be the referee. Photo courtesy of WWE/Twitter
1 of 2 | United States Champion AJ Styles (R) defended his U.S. title against Kevin Owens (L) one final time Tuesday on Smackdown with Baron Corbin selected by Owens to be the referee. Photo courtesy of WWE/Twitter

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- AJ Styles defended his United States Championship against Kevin Owens one last time Tuesday in the main event of Smackdown Live.

The SummerSlam rematch was made by Smackdown commissioner Shane McMahon after Owens pled his case about how McMahon was not a fair referee during his title match with Styles on Sunday.

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McMahon agreed to the match stating it would be the last time Owens gets a shot at the U.S. title as long as Styles is champion, but allowed The Prizefighter to select his own special guest referee for the bout.

After settling on Baron Corbin as referee, Owens faced off against Styles in another highly-competitive match that once again featured the special guest official getting physically involved. McMahon not happy with Corbin's officiating, ran down to the ring to speak with The Lone Wolf while Owens delivered a low blow to The Phenomenal One.

Corbin then began to count to three but was pulled out of the ring by McMahon who was upset that Owens was going to win using an illegal move. Frustrated, Corbin handed McMahon the referee uniform making the commissioner now in charge of the match.

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Unable to get over his frustrations with the referee change, Styles mounted a comeback against Owens and defeated him using the Phenomenal Forearm.

Also on Smackdown Live, former NXT Champion Bobby Roode made his surprise WWE main roster debut Tuesday when he appeared to defeat Aiden English. The Glorious One used his signature Glorious DDT to defeat English before giving an in-ring interview to Renee Young.

"I wanna congratulate Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon on breaking the bank and cashing in on the hottest free agent in sports entertainment today," Roode said of how he landed at Smackdown. "In a New York minute, Smackdown Live went from being great to being absolutely GLORIOUS!"

Smackdown Live also featured the return of former WWE Superstar Shelton Benjamin who formed a tag team with Chad Gable and Dolph Ziggler who promised to start acting like the "star" of the WWE starting next week.

Other moments included Smackdown Tag Team Champions The Usos defeating The Hype Bros.; Naomi and Becky Lynch defeating Smackdown Women's Champion Natalya and Ms. Money in the Bank Carmella; and Shinsuke Nakamura defeating The Singh Brothers in a Handicap Match after they interfered in Nakamura's title match against WWE Champion Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam.

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