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It's been more than 70 days since Shinsuke Nakamura won the WWE United States Championship in a decidedly nefarious fashion. With the help of a low blow, he was able to win the title in a mere six seconds. Surely such a decisive victory would bode well for the title, yes?
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Nakamura is a talented wrestler, and he is surrounded by other talented wrestlers, but for some reason, his reign hasn't taken off the way many expected it would. Here are four reasons why this reign has been sort of lackluster.
#4 Lack of credible challengers
When you look at the Smackdown roster, it's easy to see the imbalance on the roster. Ever since Nakamura, Randy Orton, and even Aiden English turned to the dark side, there's not a whole lot of options for the King of Strong Style to face.
AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Rusev, and the New Day are all preoccupied, and Jeff Hardy is seemingly out of action after dropping from the ceiling of Hell in a Cell and breaking a table with his face.
Without them, that leaves Tye Dillinger, Sin Cara, and R-Truth as the only available babyface singles competitors. That's not a whole lot of competition.
Sure, it wouldn't be too difficult to have, say, Karl Anderson or Jimmy Uso challenge Nakamura, but tag team wrestlers going after a singles title rarely happens unless they break up with their team or something.
Of course, WWE could also book heel vs heel matches (Nakamura v. Shelton Benjamin or Andrade Almas), but again, these are also rare.
That leaves the United States Championship in sort of a weird spot. Who challenges for the title next?
#3 Nakamura is constantly overshadowed
Every time Nakamura has defended his United States Championship, something else would happen and completely overshadow whatever the champion had accomplished. Whether it's Orton sticking his fingers through Jeff Hardy's ear, or Aiden English hitting Rusev in the head with a microphone, something always blows whatever Nakamura does out of the water.
Let Nakamura defend his title without any sort of outside shenanigans. Sure, he can cheat. He can perform a couple dozen low blows while the referee isn't looking. Just make sure to keep the focus on the champion.
I get that maybe WWE could be trying to plant the seeds for some sort of connection between Nakamura and Orton. I get that Rusev needed another loss for English to snap on him. But these things should not come at the expense of one of the titles.
#2 Missing out on PPVs
The last PPV that Nakamura defended his title on was Summerslam. He was one of the many superstars to get shafted at Hell in a Cell, and now he might not even appear at Super Show-Down.
This is the result of a much larger issue: Nakamura has no proper feud. He gets involved in other feuds (Rusev v. English, Hardy v. Orton), but he doesn't have that one feud to call his own. He's like that guy you know who travels from friend group to friend group but doesn't have his own set of buddies.
I get that not everyone can be on every PPV all the time, but a champion should not be treated like this. Even if there's no space for him on the card, at least give him a proper program on TV.
#1 The United States Championship feels like a consolation prize
Shinsuke Nakamura spent three months chasing after the WWE Championship, and was unsuccessful in four straight title matches. Immediately after that, he became the United States Champion.
While it may be a sign that WWE likes Nakamura, it's not hard to feel like the title is a consolation prize. It's had that stigma for a few years now. Roman Reigns won it after being suspended, Baron Corbin won it after losing his Money in the Bank cash-in, and Randy Orton won it so he could compete at Wrestlemania.
This problem is not exclusive to Shinsuke Nakamura, but since he is the current United States Champion, he is affected by it.
This problem can't really be solved until some truly great champions come around and restore the title's prestige. It just seems that Nakamura isn't one of those champions.
