Just two nights after the WWE "Payback" 2017 pay-per-view results, the brand new WWE United States Champion Chris Jericho was an official member of the "SmackDown Live" roster. Jericho came out at the start of the show after being introduced by Commissioner Shane McMahon and talked about how he would be the new leader for Tuesday's show. Shane informed Jericho that he'd be defending his title on tonight's show in a rematch against former champ kevin owens. That brought out "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles to remind Jericho of their history together and suggested he wanted nothing more than to defeat him at WWE "Backlash." Owens came out to interject as well, with Styles attacking him on the ramp after he'd had enough of Owens' trash talk.
'SmackDown' match results
Tye Dillinger was victorious over Aiden English via pinfall. English debuted a new gimmick before the match where he was doing a singing performance under a spotlight. After losing the match, he got down on his knees and cried over the loss.
The group of Natalya, Carmella, and Tamina continued to try to recruit Becky Lynch and attacked Charlotte Flair backstage. Charlotte was supposed to team with Naomi against Carmella and Natalya, however, the attack made her late for the tag match. Eventually, she got there, but the heel team got a win thanks to Ellsworth distracting Naomi. Carmella grabbed her for a pin from behind. Post-match, the heels attacked Charlotte and Naomi.
Becky showed up and pretended to be joining the heels but then attacked them. They had the upper hand due to the numbers and put her down, along with Charlotte and Naomi before leaving the ring smiling.
Dolph Ziggler defeated Sin Cara via pinfall. Ziggler got his knees up when Cara went for a move off the side ropes. Dolph followed with a big superkick and fell on top of his opponent for the win.
Earlier in the night, Ziggler had been complaining about Shinsuke Nakamura backstage for being on the "Backlash" PPV poster.
Jinder Mahal defeated Sami Zayn via pinfall. Earlier in the evening, Shane McMahon made Jinder give him back the WWE World Championship so he could return it to the rightful owner. In a match later, Jinder had the Singh Brothers with him for some distractions.
One of them pulled Jinder out of the ring before Sami could do a Helluva Kick. The other grabbed Sami's leg to trip him up when he was trying to run against the ropes. With his back turned to Mahal, Jinder came up and grabbed Sami for the finisher and the pin. Mahal will go on to "Backlash" to face Randy Orton for the WWE World Championship.
Main event title match
As promised, Chris Jericho had to defend the United States title in the main event. He tried to go after Owens' injured hand early on, but Owens managed to escape from ringside and got back in the ring. He took control of the match from there, attacking Jericho outside the ring before a commercial break.
Jericho had Walls of Jericho locked on several times during the match, but Owens found a way to escape both times.
Jericho went for a slide move when Owens was on the outside, but Owens avoided it and superkicked Jericho before DDTing him on the ramp.
That DDT did plenty of damage as later in the ring Kevin Owens was able to take advantage and hit a Popup Powerbomb and capture the winning pinfall to reclaim the United States Championship. Post-match, Jericho was still down and medical staff checked on him. Owens returned to the ring and hit another Popup Powerbomb. He picked up Jericho and yelled, "You were never my best friend" before shoving him to the mat. From there, Owens walked up the ramp with his newly won title belt. Referees and medical staff started to help "Y2J" from the ring and up the ramp.
Sickening. #SDLive pic.twitter.com/A6e5pbYDb0
— WWE (@WWE) May 3, 2017
As they got to the ramp, Owens rushed back down again to attack Jericho. He put a chair around Jericho before shoving him hard to cause even more damage. Jericho was shown clearly in pain as medical staff checked on him while Owens walked up the ramp backstage.
That means Kevin Owens will defend the United States title against AJ Styles on May 21st's "Backlash" PPV, adding another match to the card. Other bouts include Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler and Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton for the WWE World Championship.