LA Knight Retains WWE US Title In First Defense On SmackDown, Announces Open Challenge

LA Knight has officially made it past his first defense of the WWE United States Championship, defeating Santos Escobar on Friday's episode of "WWE SmackDown." Knight won the belt by defeating Logan Paul at WWE SummerSlam earlier this month.

Before the match started, Legado del Fantasma's Angel and Berto attacked LA Knight; the referee threw them and Elektra Lopez out and officially started the match. Knight went for the immediate roll up for two, but Santos threw him into the corner and hit a piledriver. After the break, Knight slammed Escobar's face into the announce table repeatedly before ripping the cover off to expose the monitors. Escobar took control back, however, sending the champion face first into the table and hitting a Meteora on Knight onto the announce table. Escobar rolled Knight back into the ring and nailed a frog splash off the top rope, but only got two.

Escobar continued to control the match until Knight got in a back elbow, then followed up with a clothesline and a sidewalk slam for two. Escobar blocked the BFT and hit a high kick, but after they went up top, and Knight pushed Escobar off the top rope, hit a surprisingly agile springboard flying elbow, and hit the BFT to retain the title. Escobar would later get into it with Baron Corbin and Apollo Crews backstage, indicating that he's moving on from Knight. Later in the episode, Knight announced he would be defending the title next week in an open challenge.