WWE SmackDown Grades: The Planet’s Champion Gains Five New Challengers

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4. R-Truth vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

It had been about seven years since R-Truth last held a championship in the WWE heading into last night.  And with the circumstances from the Royal Rumble in which Truth never got to enter the match at number 30 thanks to Nia Jax, he got the opportunity to challenge for a championship last night instead.

Shinsuke Nakamura won back the United States Championship from Rusev at the Royal Rumble, but would turn right back around and defend the title last night against Truth.  It felt like it would be nothing more than a normal match that wouldn’t see anything major happen, but fans would soon find out the WWE had something up its sleeve with this championship match.

After a pretty short match that didn’t feature much, in all honesty, Truth appeared to pin Nakamura for the count of three.  The ref counted the three as soon as it looked like Nakamura kicked out directly on that three count, but the match was awarded to Truth and he became the new U.S. Champion.  Nobody saw it coming, and nobody saw what came next when Rusev came out and goaded Truth into giving him a championship match immediately.

That match took place and, wouldn’t you know, Truth managed to escape with his title after rolling up Rusev for the win.  But after the match, Nakamura and Rusev teamed up to attack Truth, leading to Rusev’s heel turn.  The status of Nakamura and Rusev as a team is still up in the air, but Rusev is officially a heel again.  It was a wild turn of events that nobody saw coming, especially Truth winning the U.S. Championship.

The truth shall set you free and R-Truth used that to his full advantage with two shocking wins back-to-back, the first being a U.S. Championship win over The King Of Strong Style in an OK match.

Final Grade: B-