Sami Zayn has been holding open challenges for his United States championship every week on SmackDown since winning the belt at the end of August. The list of wrestlers he’s beaten in that time includes Rey Fenix, Aleister Black, Je’Von Evans, and Carmelo Hayes. Who would answer his challenge on tonight’s (Oct. 10) episode of SmackDown in Perth, Australia?
It was the returning Shinsuke Nakamura!
Not only was Nakamura back on WWE programming for his first match since June, but he ditched his recent dark heel persona. Shinsuke brought back his old entrance music and King of Strong Style gimmick that works way better for him. WWE commentary said Nakamura was reborn as the live audience welcomed him back with a huge babyface reaction throughout the match.
The match itself was pretty damn good, bringing back memories of Nakamura’s debut match in NXT from 2016. WWE does have a couple shows coming up in Japan next weekend, and it looked like Shinsuke had a good chance to win the gold ahead of those events.
He nailed Sami with Kinshasas to tease a title change, but Zayn kept kicking out of the pins. Just as Nakamura was lining up Sami for one final Kinshasa, a hooded assailant interfered, which caused the referee to throw out the match for a No Contest. The hooded man quickly revealed himself to be Tama Tonga. You can read more about that angle here.
The end result is that Sami Zayn walks out as champion and will be able to hold another open challenge next week if he so chooses, but the bigger takeaway is that Shinsuke Nakamura is finally back in WWE as the best version of himself.
Catch up on all the results from SmackDown in our live blog right here.
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