The winner of the Austin Theory Invitational United States Championship Tournament will reportedly receive their shot on SmackDown rather than at SummerSlam.
On August 5, WWE will head to Detroit to put on this year’s SummerSlam spectacle. As of writing, several matches have been announced for the show including a triple threat for the WWE Women’s Championship as Asuka defends against Charlotte Flair and Bianca Belair while Jey Uso challenges Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in a ‘Tribal Combat’ match where anything goes.
While there are undoubtedly many more matches to be announced for the show in two weeks, Dave Meltzer on F4WOnline’s Daily Update has suggested that the current plan is for there to be no United States Championship match at Ford Field’s SummerSlam show, as Austin Theory’s next defence is set for SmackDown instead.
“The Austin Theory U.S. title match was as of earlier this week scheduled for Smackdown and not for SummerSlam, which is already full with nine matches. That could always change but it was confirmed to us that was the original plan for the tournament”
-Dave Meltzer
Next week on SmackDown, Rey Mysterio will battle Santos Escobar for the next shot at Theory’s gold, as both men came out on top of their respective fatal four way matches in recent weeks.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the future of the United States Title and plans for SummerSlam as we hear more.
