King of Swerve Style: 5 Reasons Why Shinsuke Nakamura's Heel Turn is a Great Idea

Heading into WrestleMania 34, the outcomes of the two biggest men's championship matches seemed to be a near-lock.

Fans felt confident that the World and Universal Championships would be leaving the Superdome on different waists and, for different reasons, those fans were wrong.

In the case of SmackDown Live's top title, though we were treated to a post-match celebration-turned-beatdown where WWE fans got their first glimpse of an evil Shinsuke Nakamura.

The King Of Strong Style took out his frustrations at losing on defending champion (and, before this match, friendly rival) AJ Styles.

Here are five reasons why that was a brilliant move on the part of the blue brand's creative team.

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#5 It keeps the Styles door open for more matches

Nakamura and Styles could end up having a summer-long feud

Much remains to be seen in regards to how next week's Superstar Shakeup affects rivalries and storylines on the two different WWE brands.

But one thing is for certain: had Nakamura and Styles both kept their pre-Mania heel/face dynamic, there would be no reason to revisit this feud.

The program was built on a friendly rivalry of two old foes looking to prove who was the better man.

They incorporated past history into the mix and went into a face-versus-face confrontation looking to settle who was the best and who was No.1 in terms of SmackDown's, and WWE's, top male talent.

Styles won, and pretty decisively; without the heel turn, that's that. There's no reason to dip back into that well.

Nakamura low blowing The Phenomenal One, then laying into him with hard kicks at ringside, gives Styles' character motivation to move this feud into the future, possibly into a summer-long rivalry.

#4 WWE needs more true heels in its main event scene

The last true heel to contest for the WWE title

SmackDown Live, prior to Nakamura's attack, was at a serious deficit when it comes to heels who could legitimately challenge for the World Title (as evidenced by the fact that its top title program at Mania was a match between two faces).

It had Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, but the two were kayfabe fired and mired in a feud with the management of the Tuesday show, then left to seek employment elsewhere when a Mania loss sealed their terminations.

Beyond that pair, the closest SmackDown had to a heel challenger was Jinder Mahal, who had been removed from main event contention earlier in the night with a United States Championship win.

Moving down the line, the next-highest heel is Baron Corbin, who has improved tremendously but is still far from main event contention.

Removing Owens and Zayn left a "heel hole" at the top of the men's roster on Tuesdays, which Nakamura fills perfectly.

#3 Think of the pairings

A dream match that could be made even better by Nakamura embracing his dark side

To go along with The King Of Strong Style filling a need for male heels on SmackDown Live, a heel Nakamura opens up a variety of doors as far as pairings for new feuds and matches.

Simply keeping the blue brand in mind, there's the aforementioned prolonging of the Styles feud, as well as possible pairings with an officially-face Rusev, Bobby Roode (provided his own heel turn isn't already in the making), each member of The New Day, and Tye Dillinger.

Widening our scope to consider next week's Superstar Shakeup introduces the possibility of Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Jeff Hardy, Braun Strowman, and Roman Reigns as viable babyface candidates who could be foes for evil Nakamura (not to mention stars currently out with injury, like Dean Ambrose, or part-time legends like Kurt Angle).

Speaking of pre-WrestleMania authority figures able to mix it up in the ring, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the best possible matchup for an evil Nakamura, the purest babyface on either roster, this generation's Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Daniel Bryan.

All of these options could have been entertaining before the heel turn; after the turn, they're all big-money feuds that have the potential for classic matchups.

#2 He thrived as a heel in Japan

The heel/face dynamic gave this feud an edge to help propel it to five stars at the Wrestle Kingdom 9

The origination of the King of Strong Style gimmick came with Nakamura's 2009 return to New Japan Pro Wrestling, after a temporary tour of the world (which Japanese wrestling culture encourages, and even requires, for all of its talents to learn new approaches to the craft).

Everything from his new moniker The King of Strong Style, to his increasingly erratic and flamboyant behavior, his unique look and entrance, to even his expanded and hard-hitting move-set.

This came from the decision to fly in the face of Japanese tradition and forge an aggressive and showy loner character who attacked the promotion's history and top babyfaces with reckless abandon.

This heel work led Nakamura to several well-known four- and five-star encounters with men like Kota Ibushi, Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Hirooki Goto; like with the previous list of candidates for babyface opponents in WWE.

Getting the opportunity to work heel against these New Japan fan favorites opened up a world of opportunities for the King of Strong Style.

#1 Nakamura was stagnating as a babyface

A promising moment that, sadly, hasn't led to bigger successes with WWE

It's a sad, but true, realisation that, in many ways, Nakamura has not lived up to the promise he showed in his stellar debut.

Part of that stems from the novelty of his first NXT match with Zayn in Dallas, but part of that also stems from the fact that Nakamura was very limited in a good guy role.

The Artist's trademark Strong Style might be commonplace in Japan but, in mainstream American wrestling, that hard-hitting brutal style is fairly less common.

NXT fans lapped up Nakamura's showcase of hard, fast strikes in 2016, but since then the Japanese megastar seems to have been throttled in his intensity by WWE creative.

This is especially true for his main roster run so far, as his pay-per-view debut against Dolph Ziggler was a fizzle of a match that saw Nakamura playing the underdog and toning down the brutality.

And he did this so that he could fit into the model of a WWE babyface; NXT crowds tend to cheer entertaining work regardless of character.

But the more mainstream crowds who only watch RAW and SmackDown tend to see a punishing attack like Nakamura's as a "bad guy" way to wrestle.

Whether WWE put a capper on Nakamura's Strong Style, or whether The Artist just wasn't giving his all because his heart wasn't truly in his babyface run, the character had languished in a lot of respects throughout 2016.

The coolness of his entrance couldn't make up for the fact that, as a face, he had to look weak for guys like Ziggler or Mahal; a heel turn, hopefully, breathes new life and new intensity into a character very much in danger of going main roster bust.