WWE Friday Night SmackDown continues, we have our opening match tonight. If Drew Gulak defeats Shinsuke Nakamura here tonight, Daniel Bryan will challenge Sami Zayn for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
Drew Gulak vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
Chain wrestling to begin, Gulak takes advantage with a Shotgun Dropkick that takes Shinsuke into the corner. Gulak pounds him into the mat, Shinsuke escapes to the ropes to get some seperation, Gulak charges and Cesaro pulls him from the ring to help him avoid a shot. Gulak pursues, Shinsuke drives him into the announce table. Throws him back into the ring, Gulak quickly re-takes control and starts targeting the left leg. But he kicks him away, flying knee to the head from the second rope for a nearfall.
Shinsuke hooks Gulak into a front facelock, driving knee to the side. Nakamura wants the Kinsasha, charges in but Daniel Bryan pulls Gulak out of the way to help him avoid the shot, just like Cesaro did to him moments ago, Gulak rolls up Shinsuke and that’s the match.
Winner: Drew Gulak
That felt… pretty rushed. It was part of what was allegedly a ten hour taping so I guess I can’t fault them too much for it. But I have to think these two could probably deal with going a little longer than that, even in these kind of circumstances. Although in Shinsuke’s case I suppose that depends. In WWE he does focus mostly on playing to the crowd more than anything else but if you get him into that King of Strong Style mode it could certainly work. And just straight-up technical wrestling tends to translate better than anything else, so Gulak’s pretty well suited really. Ah well.
As a result of this, Daniel Bryan will thusly be challenging Sami Zayn for the Intercontinental Championship. I wonder if they’ll actually let Sami look like a wrestler in this match. He’s been treated like a non-combatant for the longest time as he’s transitioned to a managerial role. But now that he’s actually a singles title holder it sure does seem like a good time to change that. I have a feeling he’s gonna drop it though which will make for quite the brief, rather nothing reign, and the whole thing might be treated like it was a massive fluke. In which case these two probably won’t get to have the clash they could have after all…
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