Watch: Shocking WWE Championship Match Takes Place After Monday Night Raw

Cody Rhodes is coming up on seven months as WWE Champion. The American Nightmare defeated Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40 this past April to end the Tribal Chief’s 1,316-day run with the merged WWE Universal Title and WWE Championship and subsequently began his first reign with sports-entertainment’s grandest prize. In the months that followed, Rhodes picked up successful defenses against the likes of AJ Styles and Logan Paul before getting roped back into The Bloodline’s business, this time with Reigns out of the picture. Rhodes began feuding with Solo Sikoa, the new self-appointed leader of The Bloodline, and retained his WWE Title against him at both WWE SummerSlam and the WWE SmackDown on USA Network premiere thanks to an assist from Reigns.

Cody Rhodes Reignites Bloodline Feud After Raw

While the American Nightmare has turned his attention to the Ring General, his business with The Bloodline still lurks.

After WWE Monday Night Raw went off the air, WWE Champion Cody Rhodes defended his title against The Bloodline’s Jacob Fatu. This was just Fatu’s 12th match in WWE since his arrival over the summer, making him one of the fastest competitors in WWE history to earn a world title match.

You can watch the full match below…

Rhodes put the gold on the line in a Philadelphia Street Fight and successfully retained after spearing Fatu through a table and hitting him with a trifecta of Cross Rhodes. It’s worth noting that the trio of Cross Rhodes was what it took to defeat Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40 this past April, which is a subliminal suggestion that WWE has Fatu and Reigns on a similar strength level.

Neither Fatu nor Rhodes are members of the WWE Monday Night Raw roster. Both men ventured over from WWE SmackDown for one-off appearances. Fatu’s surprise appearance came during the televised main event in an effort to meddle with WWE Intercontinental Champion Jey Uso’s title defense against Bron Breakker. Fatu was joined by fellow members of The Bloodline including Solo Sikoa and WWE World Tag Team Champions Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa.

While all four men were running interference, it was Fatu who did the only blatant damage to Jey’s match. Sikoa arrived sarcastically saying that he was there to help Jey win, and Tonga Loa tried to hype up Jey at ringside. Jey struck Tonga Loa with a superkick the second he showed up, leading Tama Tonga to leap at Jey but take a strike of his own. As things progressed, Sikoa got laid out by both Jey and Breakker, which is what set Fatu off. In the closing moments, Fatu landed a superkick on Jey and hit him with a Samoan Drop on the announce table, leaving the Yeet Man prone to a wicked spear from Breakker that secured the 1-2-3.

This will likely lead to Jey returning to WWE SmackDown to re-enter The Bloodline saga. Jey’s brother Jimmy Uso has attempted to reconcile with him over the past couple of weeks, but Jey has made it clear that he is not interested in talking right now. Now that he has lost the WWE Intercontinental Championship, Jey might be left with no choice but to fight alongside The Bloodline OGs once again.