WWE United States Championship Match
Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
What we learned: Did we have time to learn anything here except that Randy Orton is back?
I figured that following his multiple failed attempts to win the WWE Championship that Shinsuke Nakamura would walk away with some gold in this one but I was at least expecting an actual match. After having to miss out on their first encounter after being bitten by a dog, Nakamura got his standard low blow in before the bell rang, knocking Hardy to the ground. Hardy summoned for the ref to ring the bell but just one second after it rang, Nakamura came in with the Kinshasa and that was that. I was really hoping for a good match here but that obviously didn’t happen. I guess Hardy’s back is worse off than we thought.
https://twitter.com/WWEUniverse/status/1018647218536869888
What’s next: Following the cage match between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens, it was announced that Jeff Hardy had asked for his automatic rematch for the United States Championship this Tuesday on SmackDown Live so that looks to be the next chapter here. The question is where Randy Orton fits into all of this. When he came down the ramp, it looked as if we were going to get the start to the build of Orton vs. Nakamura at SummerSlam, which I suppose is still a possibility.
But The Viper has clearly gone back to being a heel, which obviously suits him much better, as he attacked Hardy after the “match”. So it looks as if we’ll just have to wait until Tuesday night to see where all of this is going.