WWE Extreme Rules 2018: Live Review, Results, Highlights, and Grades

Photo Source: WWE.com

United States Championship

Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Result: Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Jeff Hardy via pinfall to become the NEW United States Champion

Rating: DUD

Jeez, I had just finished typing in the heading for this slide when the bell rang, and then the match was over. So let’s make some sense out of this.

Jeff Hardy recently said in an interview that his back is all jacked up. He hasn’t been doing the Swanton Bomb at live events because he’s trying to protect it for as long as he can. And it’s no secret that in the matches Hardy’s been having on SmackDown as of late, he’s moving a bit slowly and gingerly. So a quick match to drop the title makes some sense.

https://twitter.com/WWEUniverse/status/1018647218536869888

Nakamura, for all intents and purposes, should probably be the WWE Champion right now. If it weren’t for AJ Styles being on the cover of WWE 2K19, that would be the case. Instead, he slid over to challenge Jeff Hardy (possibly in place of Andrade Almas, if that story is to be believed).

But a low blow before the bell behind the official’s back? And Hardy gutting it out just to take a Kinshasa as the bell rang? Seems a little much. And when Randy Bore-ton — sorry, Randy ORTON’s music hit, my eyes rolled back so hard I could see behind me.

So when Randy attacked Hardy with a low blow of his own, nothing made sense. I’m guessing tuning into SmackDown on Tuesday will be essential to figure this out. Personally, if Nakamura and Orton don’t team up as The Ball Busters after this, I give up.