It's not quite the heady days of John Cena's open challenges, but Alberto Del Rio and Kalisto have been waging an increasingly personal battle for the United States title.
After trading the belt back and forth for weeks, the two men were trying to settle the issue once and for all in a two-out-of-three falls match on the Fastlane Kickoff show. Adding to the big fight feel, SmackDown lead announcer Mauro Ranallo made his WWE pay-per-view (PPV) debut alongside JBL and Byron Saxton.
Early on, Kalisto took the action to Del Rio both in the ring and on the floor, but the Mexican aristocrat was more interested in gloating than winning a fall. The smaller man sent his opponent into the ring post and hit an impressive hurricanrana off the barricade onto Alberto.
That lead to the first fall, but not in the way you'd expect. The Lucha Dragon went to springboard into the timekeeper's area, but was met with a steel chair for a disqualification. Del Rio looked to take full advantage of giving up a fall by inflicting more damage before the second even began, throwing Kalisto into the steel stairs as we headed to commercial.
Once the bell rang, the masked lucador tried to fight, but was quickly set up for Alberto's rope hung foot stomp finisher. The match was evened up at a fall a piece seconds later.
So, it came down to a straight-forward one fall to a finish, but with the babyface much worse for wear. ADR looked to add insult to injury by ripping at the mask, but paused to gloat again before hitting his finisher once more. Kalisto pulled him down from the top with a Frankensteiner, and stayed on the accelerator , but neither man could get a three count despite some high impact maneuvers. One of those, an inverted superplex from Del Rio, sent the champ to the floor.
That lead to Alberto setting Kalisto up for a foot stomp off the barricade, setting up a dramatic referee count where the champ barely raced in at nine. A missed finisher for each man saw Del Rio sent face first into the turnbuckle, and a quick roll-up meant Kalisto was still the U.S. champion.