WWE SmackDown Results, Highlights, Grades For May 15, 2018

Samoa Joe/IIconics Promos

If you have time, I’d recommend checking out these two cell phone promos, because they were both tremendous. The articulate Joe outlined his qualms with Big Cass and his journey to hopefully claiming the Money in the Bank contract. These two have a Money in the Bank qualifying match next week. Meanwhile, Billie Kay faces Lana in a women’s qualifying match, and she and Peyton Royce spoke about how the future will be “IIconic” by playing some word association. These two are so entertaining.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles

The winner of this match gets to pick the stipulation for their WWE Championship match at Money in the Bank, with most fans expecting this to end up being a Last Man Standing match.

As always, the United Kingdom crowds are the best, as the energy for this match was absolutely tremendous.

Nakamura and Styles had inconclusive finishes and seemed to be holding back in their previous matches, so this bout tonight was easily their best. The in-ring action was hard-hitting and highlighted both the familiarity between these two opponents, as well as the story between them thus far in the WWE. The finish was a real highlight, with Nakamura trying to fool the ref into thinking Styles hit him with a low blow after he used the ref to block a Phenomenal Forearm attempt. He took advantage of the ref’s confusion to hit Styles with a reverse exploder, and this led to Nakamura hitting Styles with a Kinsasha for the win.

Next: WWE Raw 5 Takeaways

So Nakamura made good on his promise to repeatedly hit Styles in the face with his knee en route to victory. Not only is this his first victory over Styles in the WWE, but it also means he gets to choose the stipulation for their match at Money in the Bank. We’ll see what that stipulation ends up being, but I’m personally hoping for an instant classic Ironman match.

Grade: A+, this is absolutely a must-watch match.