WWE SmackDown Grades: Phenomenal Mind Games By AJ Styles
Photo by WWE’s Twitter
1. AJ Styles And Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Shelton Benjamin And Chad Gable
The WWE universe is only four days away from a dream match that nobody thought would happen in the WWE. AJ Styles will defend his WWE Championship against Shinsuke Nakamura, but the two were on the same team last night in a tag team match to main event the show.
Styles and Nakamura battled Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable after Nakamura defeated Benjamin the week before. The tag team match itself was secondary in this match as the chess match between The Phenomenal One and The King Of Strong Style continued on the final SmackDown before their epic showdown at WrestleMania 34.
That doesn’t automatically discredit the tag team match that took place last night, however, and it was pretty good despite it being secondary in the grand scheme of things. In the end, Styles got the win for his team and made a statement to Nakamura at the same time. And after the match, the statement became even louder.
Benjamin and Gable attacked Nakamura after the match before he fended both of them off as Styles was about to help him out. But instead, Styles lined up Nakamura for a phenomenal forearm, but held back just as he was about to hit it before patting Nakamura on the head, just as Nakamura did to Styles the week before. The mind games between the two have been great and they add so much to this dream match.
Next: WWE Raw 5 Takeaways From April 2 Show
The storytelling and post-match interaction took center stage, but the actual tag team match itself was pretty good despite it not being that important in all honesty.