Shinsuke Nakamura vs. John Cena headlined this week’s episode of Smackdown Live. The match was made to determine who would face Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. Mahal and The Singh Brothers watched the match from a skybox high above the arena. Cena appeared to have the match won at one point after hitting two AA’s but Nakamura kicked out of them. After approximately 15 minutes of back-and-forth action, Nakamura got a clean pin over Cena after hitting the exploder and the Kinshasa to the face so he will go on to challenge Mahal. Cena and Nakamura shook hands with Mahal looking on as the show ended.
Earlier in the show, AJ Styles retained his United States Championship against Kevin Owens but it was a controversial finish because Owens accidentally hit the ref in the eye and the ref counted Owens down when Styles rolled him up while Owens had his shoulder up. Backstage, Owens complained and it was decided that he would get a rematch at SummerSlam with Shane McMahon as the special referee. It was looking like they were headed towards a McMahon vs. Owens match but apparently, it’s not happening…at least not at SummerSlam.
Here are the matches that have been officially announced for the show:
WWE Universal Championship – Fatal 4-Way match
Brock Lesnar (Champion) vs. Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe vs. Braun Strowman
United States Championship
AJ Styles (Champion) vs. Kevin Owens
Shane McMahon will be the special referee
Raw Women’s Championship
Alexa Bliss (Champion) vs. Bayley
Smackdown Women’s Championship
Naomi (Champion) vs. Natalya
Randy Orton vs. Rusev
One of the title matches is in jeopardy because of a possible injury. To read more on that story, click here.
Click here for complete results from this week’s episode of Smackdown Live.
