Following his quick United States Championship victory over Jeff Hardy at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Shinsuke Nakamura will have to defend the title again at Smackdown Live on Tuesday night.
The story told was that Nakamura hit Hardy with a low blow before the match started and while the referee wasn’t looking. The match got started and Nakamura finished Hardy quickly with the Kinshasa to become U.S. Champion for the first time. Following the match, Randy Orton returned and stared at Nakamura before attacking Hardy with a low blow.
Later in the show, WWE announced that the Nakamura vs. Hardy rematch will take place on Tuesday but this looks more like it will be an angle to set up Orton vs. Nakamura at SummerSlam.
The match/angle at Extreme Rules came off like they were writing Hardy off TV but we’ll see what goes down on Tuesday night. Hardy has said publicly that he is beat up and he has toned his style down, especially on live events, because his back is bothering him.