WWE SmackDown: How They Can Fix Shinsuke Nakamura

August 1st, 2017 – SmackDown Live

On the August 1st edition of SmackDown Live, Shinsuke Nakamura took on John Cena for the right to become the next Number One contender for Jinder Mahal’s WWE Championship.

This was by far Shinsuke’s best match on the main roster.

Cena and Nakamura went back and forth, and the crowd was behind Shinsuke all the way. Seeing this as the start of a long WWE Championship run for Shinsuke and an end to a horrible run for Jinder Mahal.

Shinsuke won the match and earned the right to face Mahal at SummerSlam.

Fans were worried about this match, and given Mahal’s track record for bad matches; they were right to be worried. Still, though, everyone hoped Shinsuke would pull out a victory. Mostly because they wanted to watch the build between AJ Styles and Shinsuke, which appears to be WWE’s plans for the SmackDown side of WrestleMania 34, and they wanted to see the end of Jinder as champion.

Unfortunately, WWE decided to continue the Jinder experiment, and Shinsuke was pinned in the middle of the ring after one Khalas from Jinder, and some interference from the Singh Brothers.

This match was horrible from the beginning. It’s hard to describe exactly what happened in this match. The best way to put it is, Jinder and Shinsuke don’t mesh well in the ring. Their styles are so different that they seem to be unable to feed off of one another and aren’t able to put together a cohesive match.

Shinsuke would get a rematch at Hell in a Cell, but unfortunately, it was more of the same. The Singh’s got involved and cost Shinsuke the WWE Championship once again.