Battleground | |||
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Promotion | WWE | ||
Brand(s) | SmackDown | ||
Date | July 23, 2017 | ||
City | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | ||
Venue | Wells Fargo Center | ||
Attendance | 12,500[1] | ||
Tagline(s) | The Return of the Punjabi Prison | ||
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Battleground chronology | |||
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The 2017 Battleground was the fifth annual Battleground professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's SmackDown brand division. The event took place on July 23, 2017, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the final Battleground held until 2023, as Battleground was expected to return as a Raw event in 2018, but following WrestleMania 34 in April that year, brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued, resulting in WWE reducing the amount of yearly PPVs produced. In 2023, the Battleground event was revived for WWE's developmental territory, NXT.
Eight matches were contested at the event, including one match on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Jinder Mahal defeated Randy Orton in the third-ever Punjabi Prison match to retain the WWE Championship. The ending of the match also saw a one-off surprise appearance by The Great Khali, who last performed in WWE in November 2014. In other prominent matches, Kevin Owens defeated AJ Styles to win his third United States Championship, John Cena defeated Rusev in a flag match, and in the opening bout, The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) defeated The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championship.