8 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE SummerSlam 2017

3. Shane Becomes Third Wheel

AJ Styles Kevin Owens
WWE.com

We all know that WWE firmly believes that McMahons = Ratings, so whenever you need to draw more attention to something, throw a McMahon at it.

You’d think that a United States Championship match between Kevin Owens and AJ Styles would be enough of a draw on its own, but we apparently needed Shane McMahon as a guest referee. And sure enough, Shane-O-Mac got drawn right into the bout, getting hit multiple times, shoving both men into pinfall attempts and waiving off a three count because he missed a foot on the ropes.

All of that meant that however good the U.S. title match was, our attention would be taken away from the bout and placed on Shane multiple times throughout. While not a horrible thing (Shane at least had history with AJ, and KO is an awesome antagonist), you have to ask if it was necessary.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.