Grading recent WWE Superstar face and heel turns

#3 Face turn - Shinsuke Nakamura

Shinsuke Nakamura

Shinsuke Nakamura entered NXT and the WWE main roster as a face. He challenged for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 34 as a face but underwent a heel turn immediately after losing to AJ Styles. That was over two years ago and in that time, Nakamura has remained a heel. It has led him to runs as SmackDown Tag Team Champ, United States Champ and Intercontinental Champion.

While he had title success as a heel, he is someone that is usually loved by the fans regardless of what he does. He's like Daniel Bryan. Both are so good at the craft that it is hard to root against them.

Following the 2020 WWE Draft, the face side in the main event was left a bit lacking on the blue brand. The scene consisted primarily of Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. Big E was thought to be rising up the card following the draft, but he has remained a mid-carder for the time being.

Because of the lack of face depth - and possibly because Reigns needed new challengers - Nakamura was essentially handed a face turn in a gauntlet match. The match was in order to determine the challenger for Reigns at the Royal Rumble. Nakamura was the iron man of the bout and displayed sportsmanship with Bryan after he eliminated him. Reigns and Uso then attacked Nakamura in order to have Adam Pearce win the gauntlet match.

Nakamura has stayed the course after his face turn, but has not received a title shot or any measure of revenge against the Tribal Chief and his lackey. Since Nakamura gets to be scrappier and more of an underdog as a face, it is an improvement over his character prior to the Draft.

Grade for Shinsuke Nakamura face turn - B+