If WWE Royal Rumble as not shocking enough, last night turned out to be even bigger for the United States Championship. We are having yet another new champion in the form of R-Truth who defeated Nakamura to win the title. This marked for the fourth time that the title changed hands in nearly one month. The fun part is that R-Truth already defended the title on Smackdown after winning it. Ultimately, he was able to come out the title keeping his champion status intact.
Shinsuke Nakamura became the new United States Champion on Royal Rumble defeating Rusev. The Bulgarian Brute did not get any rematch since there is no automatic rematch clause in the WWE, for now. Instead, WWE officials gave a chance to R-Truth who was a former United States Champion himself. Plus, there might be an additional reason why he received this sudden chance.
R-Truth was going to be the 30th participant of the Royal Rumble match. But he could not make it to the ring after suffering an attack from Nia Jax. So this title match came as a golden opportunity to claim his strong status back on Smackdown. Well, R-Truth was able to do it by capitalizing on the opportunity given to him.
Nakamura took the early upper hand in the opening contest of Smackdown Live. He was setting up his opponent for the Kinshasa when R-Truth countered with the Lie Detector. He followed up with a modified facebuster move which Nakamura countered with a schoolboy. R-Truth reversed it once more to get the pinfall and become the new United States Champion.
Rusev entered Smackdown, next claiming that the WWE Universe needed a strong champion like him. R-Truth does not deserve to be a champion. He went on to issue a challenge to the superstars who just won back the title. A brawl broke out between Lana and Carmella on the spot after which R-Truth faced Rusev in his second match of the night.
This match came to a sudden end as Rusev digested the quickest pinfall with a simple roll-up. He seemed irate and joined Nakamura to deliver a post-match beatdown on R-Truth. This confirmed a surprising heel-turn by the Bulgarian Brute who made an ally with Nakamura. Next week, these two will team up against the Good Brothers on Smackdown.