The scheduled match between Kevin Owens and Randy Orton at the WWE Crown Jewel on Saturday never got off the ground after both superstars got into a wild brawl.

KO attacked Orton with a steel chair before the bell rang, which led to a lot of collateral damage, including Owens hitting a referee with a Stunner and Orton eliminating Raw General Manager Adam Pearce with an RKO .

Owens and Orton eventually fought in the crowd, and their altercation ended with KO hitting The Viper with an elbow drop through a table.

It wasn’t that long ago that Owens wrestled alongside Orton and Cody Rhodes against The Bloodline, but KO showed his true colors at Bad Blood last month when he attacked The American Nightmare in the parking lot.

While the betrayal was not part of the premium live event, video of it made the rounds on social media after the show, which was clearly a calculated decision on WWE’s part in trying to create a viral moment.

In the weeks that followed, WWE tiptoed around the incident on Raw and SmackDown, and Owens accused the company of trying to silence him and preventing him from telling his side of the story.

When The Prizefighter tried to get hold of Rhodes during a recent episode of SmackDown, Orton intervened. This led KO to attack him due to his belief that he was siding with the WWE Champion.

Owens noted that while he expected Rhodes’ actions, he did not believe that Orton chose Rhodes over him, which is why he decided to take out his frustrations on his former tag team partner.

Shortly after the altercation took place, Orton went to SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis and demanded a match against KO. However, Aldis turned him down, noting that someone higher up than him in WWE made the call.

Orton responded by calling WWE Chief Creative Officer Triple H to the ring the following week on SmackDown and demanding that he make the match happen.

The Game initially refused, and after Orton accused him of trying to protect Owens, Triple H said he was actually trying to protect The Viper, who had missed a year and a half of action with a back injury before returning last November at Survivor Series.

This angered Orton, who asked his former stablemate Evolution to put himself in his shoes and think about what he would have done when he was the Cerebral Assassin.

Triple H reluctantly relented and awarded Orton the Crown Jewel match, which may have been the wrong decision based on the punishment he absorbed.

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