Nakamura vs. Ziggler
The match of the night had to be Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Dolph Ziggler, one that got a solid 17-20 minutes of television time to take us into the second hour of Smackdown Live. As we have seen over the past few months, both guys are precise in their offense, physical in their lower body attacks and want to show off over the other. They really have great chemistry together and it showed tonight. After a nice exploder suplex, Ziggler was able to shy away from the Kinsasha and gauge the eyes of Nakamura. With a slower pace and more submission attempts, Shinsuke had to battle out and did successfully. This led to him connecting with a Kinsasha that took the head off of the former world champion.
This was just a damn good wrestling match, nothing more or nothing less. Since both men seem to have finalized their feud tonight, especially with Dolph Ziggler losing multiple times, it seems appropriate to say they are both going to move on. Shinsuke needs to take a step up, while Dolph Ziggler could easily feud with a guy like Sami Zayn. They are both on similar levels on the roster and work better than 90% of them. I would be on board with this and think it could really help each guy stay somewhat relevant.
United States Championship Open
With Kevin Owens as champion, he said anyone from Dayton, Ohio can battle him for the title. AJ Styles comes out and he wants to get a shot. Owens repeats himself and Chad Gable comes out. He says he just moved to Dayton and rattled off an address in Dayton, much to the crowd’s delight. This starts a match, with Gable hitting a few beautiful German Suplexes to get the upper hand. Gable continues the attack on the champion, but Owens was able to slow him down with a superkick and then finally finishing him off with a Pop-up Powerbomb for the win.
I like the US Championship open and think it could help a lot of guys that are not being utilized get a chance to compete on Smackdown Live. It worked for John Cena, so why not for Kevin Owens? Let him roll with this, while keeping AJ Styles very close to his collar and continuing that feud that was on a brief pause because of Money in the Bank. I do see AJ Styles getting back into the championship picture, possibly when Baron Corbin decides to cash in. For now, they can continue to give me Owens vs. Styles and I am positive not many people can complain about that. I just want WWE to make sure that this United States Championship open is meant to show us young stars, not bury them every week.
