Shinsuke Nakamura has been used in a limited role over the past several weeks on Smackdown Live. This included him not defending the United States Title at the recent Super Show-Down event in Australia. He will be facing Rey Mysterio in a qualifying match for the WWE World Cup on Smackdown this week.
We decided to speculate on the plans for Nakamura and his next United States Championship feud.
Let’s start with Smackdown
I think that Nakamura’s match with Mysterio on Smackdown is going to spark a long-term feud between the two. To start, I have Mysterio winning the match on Smackdown against Nakamura. Mysterio probably isn’t going to lose his first match back. Also, WWE has been using a lot of older stars for the World Cup (like John Cena, Kurt Angle, and Jeff Hardy), so Mysterio fits into that pretty well. My guess is that Mysterio wins clean.
So what about after Smackdown?
I think that Nakamura is going to attack Mysterio during the WWE World Cup and cost him his chance to win the tournament. Nakamura will be upset with his loss to Mysterio on Smackdown, which will ignite a feud between them.
I think that it will lead to a Rey vs Shinsuke feud for the next several weeks on the blue brand. Nakamura needs a big feud since his United States Championship reign hasn’t been too exciting so far. I think many fans would enjoy seeing these two face off a few times, especially on PPV. To me, this seems like a perfect feud for the U.S Title.
I could even see Rey taking the Title off Nakamura down the road.
That is what I think will go down. What about you? Let me know in the comment section below.
On a related note, here are our predictions on who will be the next 5 WWE Champions.