John Cena vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
The crowd erupted into a chorus of “John Cena Sucks” as soon as his music hit. JBL laughably said this was the single biggest match of Shinsuke Nakamura’s career, which is hilarious when you consider this is a singles match on Smackdown and he’s headlined the Tokyo Dome five times for the title.
Nakamura backed the 16-time champion into the corner and did some of us unusual antics, and Cena wasn’t sure what to do with that. They locked up in the center of the ring and Nakamura won the exchange easily grappling his opponent to the mat, then threw him into the corner for Good Vibrations. It’s all Shinsuke as he continues to taunt the Franchise, but Cena powers out of the corner with a big suplex and dropped into a side headlock to slow things down. Jinder Mahal is shown watching the match from his skybox as we come back from commercial. Nakamura fired back with knees to the midsection and a spinning kick, then continued his assault with stiff kicks to take Cena down. He charged into the corner with a running elbow then muscled him to the top rope for his double knee attack. Cena kicked out a two and hit a spinout powerbomb, but spent too much time taunting the Five Knuckle Shuffle and got caught in a cross armbar. Nakamura transitioned the hold into a triangle choke, Cena faded but then picked him up into the air with just one hand! He couldn’t get the slam however and the Artist threw him down hard with a facebuster.
Nakamura lined up for the Kinshasa but got caught in the STF in the center of the ring. He fought his way out of the hold and went back into the cross armbar! Cena rolled him up and got two-and-a-half, then turned him inside out with a huge running lariat. The Attitude Adjustment connects, but Nakamura got his shoulder up just in time to a huge pop. Cena looked around trying to figure out what to do to put his opponent away and settled for a second Attitude Adjustment, but Nakamura countered into a rear mounted choke. Cena shook it off and planted him with a second Attitude Adjustment, then rolled through and lifted him onto his shoulders for a third, but Nakamura destroyed him with an inverted suplex landing hard on the back of his neck! He’s feeling it… Kinshasa connects! 1…2…3!
Winner: Shinsuke Nakamura
