What's the story?
With WWE Crown Jewel now being less than 24 hours away, WWE United States Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura has found himself a place on the finalized match card, as 'The Artist' prepares himself to defend his WWE US Title against former two-time champion Rusev on the kickoff show.
In case you didn't know...
After having failed to win the WWE Championship in the early stages of 2018, Shinsuke Nakamura turned his attention towards the WWE United States Championship and at this year's Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Nakamura eventually got his shot at the title and defeated Jeff Hardy to win his first title on the WWE main roster.
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After having defended the US Title in a rematch against Hardy, 'The Artist' scored another successful title defense over Rusev on the September 18th episode of SmackDown Live. However, Nakamura, who despite suffering a loss to Rey Mysterio in the Crown Jewel World Cup Qualification match, now finds himself on the first match of the show as he is being made to defend the US Title yet again.
The heart of the matter
Despite no build or no hype whatsoever, Shinsuke Nakamura is now bound to defend his WWE United States Championship against Rusev on the WWE Crown Jewel Kickoff Show, as per confirmed by WWE's Twitter handle.
Coming off a fairly easy US Title defense against R-Truth from this week's episode of SmackDown Live, Nakamura now has the task of battling Rusev, in what promises to be a rather tougher challenge for 'The Artist'.
With Aiden English at the back of this mind, will Rusev be able to focus on this massive title match against Nakamura, who for one was originally scheduled to defend his US Title against Tye Dillinger this week but of course that didn't happen!
What's next?
WWE Crown Jewel is scheduled to take place later today and thus far several top matches have been confirmed for the show, with both the WWE and Universal Championship also being featured on the show as well.