The bizarre ending to the September 18, 2026 episode of WWE SmackDown apparently wasn’t supposed to go down the way fans saw it. Sami Zayn retained the Undisputed WWE Championship against Kevin Owens, but WWE was forced to scramble after the referee failed to end the match when he was supposed to.
The chaos went down after CM Punk stormed into the main event and blasted Owens with the Undisputed WWE Championship. Zayn immediately covered Owens, and the referee counted all the way to three — but instead of calling for the bell, the match somehow kept going.
That instantly had fans wondering whether Owens simply forgot to kick out. The television broadcast only made things stranger when Zayn eventually hit another Helluva Kick and pinned Owens again, this time getting the victory that actually ended the match.
Now Fightful Select has cleared up what happened backstage, and the mistake apparently wasn’t on Owens at all. WWE sources told Fightful that Owens was never supposed to kick out after Punk smashed him with the championship belt.
The belt shot and three-count were supposed to be the finish. Once the referee counted three and failed to call for the bell, everyone involved suddenly had to keep the match alive and find another way out.
That explains why Zayn and Owens appeared to go right back into action despite what looked like a completed pinfall. Zayn eventually connected with another Helluva Kick and covered Owens again, giving the referee another three-count and finally bringing the match to an end.
The screw-up came during an already insane closing stretch. Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae had both inserted themselves into the match before Punk arrived and blasted Owens with the championship, continuing the mess surrounding Zayn’s title reign.
There’s plenty of history behind Owens getting smashed with that same championship too. Sami Zayn previously nailed Kevin Owens with the WWE Title and cost him a championship match against CM Punk on the August 21 episode of SmackDown, so WWE has been building this ugly three-man situation for weeks.
The wild part is that viewers weren’t imagining anything when that first three-count looked completely wrong. Owens did exactly what he was supposed to do by staying down — it was the referee failing to call for the bell that blew up WWE’s planned finish and forced everyone in the ring to manufacture another ending on the fly.
Do you think WWE handled the botched finish well once the referee missed the planned ending, or did the extra Helluva Kick make the whole thing even more obvious? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
