WWE SmackDown 5 Predictions: AJ Styles With His Own Mindgames

Styles And Nakamura Defeat Benjamin And Gable With Mindgames

Last week, Shinsuke Nakamura reluctantly asked AJ Styles for help, as he needed The Phenomenal One to be in his corner for his match against Shelton Benjamin. Nakamura defeated the former Intercontinental Champion with relative ease, but he needed Styles out there in order to ensure that Benjamin’s partner, Chad Gable, didn’t get any ideas about potentially ruining the big WWE Championship match between Nakamura and Styles.

After the match, Styles and Nakamura cleaned house against Benjamin and Gable, and then Shinsuke went after Styles. It was brilliant. Because for a second there, it looked like Nakamura had betrayed the tacit trust between he and Styles that they’d want each other to be at their best at WrestleMania. He ran at Styles in the center of the ring, poised to hit his Kinsasha Knee Strike finisher. Instead, he pulled up short and merely teased Styles, showing the champion that he is at the mercy of the King of Strong Style. “Knee to face.”

There is absolutely no doubt that Styles and Nakamura will overcome Gable and Benjamin, and it should be a great match, given the caliber of wrestlers in the ring. Styles and Nakamura have been two of the best in the world for years, and Gable and Benjamin are an incredibly well-oiled tag team that could have easily been champions at one point (if not for the fact that the Usos are the best tag team in the world…no shade on the Young Bucks).

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However, what’s more interesting will be Styles’s response to Nakamura’s mindgames last week. It seems like with his comments about Styles’s confidence and his sly backhanded compliments, Nakamura’s had the upper hand mentally in the build to this matchup. Styles needs to get back in his element, and what better way to do that than to tease a Phenomenal Forearm or something of that nature?