{"id":19785,"date":"2018-06-07T13:18:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=19785"},"modified":"2018-06-07T13:20:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T17:20:31","slug":"money-in-the-bank-preview-aj-styles-c-vs-shinsuke-nakamura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/06\/07\/money-in-the-bank-preview-aj-styles-c-vs-shinsuke-nakamura\/","title":{"rendered":"Money in the Bank Preview: AJ Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On <strong>WrestleMania\u00a0<\/strong>Sunday, both <strong>AJ Styles<\/strong> and <strong>Shinsuke Nakamura<\/strong> had a solid match for the WWE Championship, however it didn\u2019t live up to expectations due to the fans expecting a New Japan-esque wrestling match on a WWE stage. However, this match did give the fans a chance to see the versatility of the Nakamura character. This was the start of a new entertaining heel turn that would see Nakamura \u201clow blowing\u201d \u201cThe Phenomenal One\u201d AJ Syles every chance that he got.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"AJ Styles battles Shinsuke Nakamura in a dream match at WrestleMania\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ez2j3aVcTqk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Fast forward to <b><i>The Greatest Royal Rumble<\/i><\/b>. The Match quality became better, however the match did end in controversy with a double count out. A third match would happen nine days later at <b><i>Backlash<\/i><\/b> where <i>Smackdown <\/i>General Manager <strong>Paige<\/strong> would declare that this would be a No Disqualification match. No count outs included in the stipulations. After a better than expected match that yet again, ended in shenanigans due to a rousing game of Roshambo, the match ended in a double fault where neither one of them could answer to a count of ten. This became so out of hand, Paige gave these two one more match on the 15th of May edition of <strong><i>Smackdown Live <\/i><\/strong>that actually had a definitive winner. Nakamura won with a Kinshasa and would declare a \u201cLast Man Standing\u201d match a week later as the choice to finally end the rivalry between the two.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Styles &amp; Nakamura trade barbs during explosive contract signing: SmackDown LIVE, June 5, 2018\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dn9Ov0_j9GM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to Pro Wrestling Wikia, the definition of a Last Man Standing match is a match in which two wrestlers fight until one of them is knocked out or unable to fight anymore. The referee must count to ten while the wrestler is laying down and the last man standing wins the match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In WWE alone, there have been forty of these said matches, the last one being <strong>Kane<\/strong> vs. <strong>Braun Strowman<\/strong> on the 29th of January 2018 edition of <em><strong>Raw<\/strong><\/em>, which Strowman would win. From <strong>Triple H<\/strong> vs. <strong>Chris Jericho<\/strong> at <em><strong>Fully Loaded 2000<\/strong><\/em> to <strong>Dean Ambrose<\/strong> vs. <strong>Kevin Owens<\/strong> at the <em><strong>2016 Royal Rumble<\/strong><\/em>, the Last Man Standing Match typically on all accounts deliver big on any card needing a boost and with Nakamura vs. AJ Styles being the match potentially closing the show, this could cause some great moments to add to the highlight real of Last Man Standing matches moving forward.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Braun Strowman vs. Kane - Last Man Standing Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Raw, Jan. 29, 2018\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pBGAHmwofmk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Due to the rumors of the men\u2019s <strong>Money in the Bank<\/strong> winner being a <i>Smackdown <\/i>roster member, this match truly is an outlier of who might be the next to hold the WWE Champion. Coming into Chicago, the heels of <i>Smackdown <\/i>in the likes of <strong>Samoa Joe,<\/strong> <strong>The Miz<\/strong> and even <strong>Rusev<\/strong> are gaining some positive momentum entering into the Allstate Arena and each of them are crafty enough in their own right to interfere and cause both men to feel screwed over as the Money in the Bank holder to be champion. However, that may not happen. We might have a definitive and decisive winner, but if you want a place for a star to be born, Chicago is the place and that could be either Nakamura\u2019s moment to shine, putting an end to the 210+ day WWE Championship reign of AJ Styles, or establish Samoa Joe, Miz or Rusev as the top heel of the <i>Smackdown Live <\/i>brand. At this point, it makes the most sense for Samoa Joe to cash in at that moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>Winner: Samoa Joe via Cash In turning the match to a standard Triple Threat Match.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On WrestleMania\u00a0Sunday, both AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had a solid match for the WWE Championship, however it didn\u2019t live up to expectations due to the fans expecting a New Japan-esque wrestling match on a WWE stage. However, this match did give the fans a chance to see the versatility of the Nakamura character. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2484,"featured_media":19836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,26,3],"tags":[145,1474,648,118,148],"class_list":["post-19785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-aj-styles","tag-last-man-standing","tag-money-in-the-bank","tag-shinsuke-nakamura","tag-smackdown-live"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}