One of the more interesting things to happen on the road to the Royal Rumble this year was a gauntlet match on SmackDown that would have determined Roman Reigns’ challenger for the Universal Title. Although Reigns put in the fix to guarantee Adam Pearce would win, Shinsuke Nakamura put in a performance that had fans cheering and seemingly positioned him to become a babyface once more.
Now, in a new report, that spot wasn’t meant for him apparently.
Nakamura put on a performance that saw him eliminate Daniel Bryan, Rey Mysterio, and King Corbin in a match that made him look well on his way to facing Reigns for the Universal Title, but it was not meant to be due to Reigns attacking him and ensuring Adam Pearce would win the gauntlet match. This essentially turned Nakamura babyface, but he was not originally scheduled to be the one in that position. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported Daniel Bryan initially pitched for Cesaro to be given that spot, but WWE eventually gave the position to Nakamura.
The gauntlet match that Adam Pearce won on Smackdown, the babyface star making spot of running through the field and then getting screwed at the end was an idea of Bryan, and his pick for the spot was Cesaro. However, since Cesaro hadn’t signed yet, it was switched to Nakamura, so Cesaro was going to be the face originally. But even if some thought Nakamura got over in that match, and without live fans there’s really no way to know, since he was a replacement, the plan wasn’t to follow up much which is why he’s basically in the same spot, only on the face side. He’s been told his role is to make new stars.
Cesaro has now re-signed with the company since then. It’s unfortunate, but Cesaro did gather quite a bit of momentum before the Royal Rumble anyways. It should be interesting how WWE follows up with this.
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