WWE.com announced that United States Champion Jeff Hardy and Shinsuke Nakamura will square off on tomorrow's episode of SmackDown Live, and the pair have already began the trash talk.
The creative team has taken a strange approach during Nakamura's run as a heel. They've had him cut some odd promos that don't come off as very heel-ish. The whole thing got even more weird during this Twitter interaction with Hardy.
Hardy then fired back with this epic and savage shot:
Nakamura then responded with this:
It finally concluded with Hardy having the last word:
Alrighty then, that was kind of awkward. Anywho, Nakamura will get quite the test against a future Hall of Famer in Hardy before his Last Man Standing match with AJ Styles for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank.
Nakamura debuted on the WWE's main roster last year, and the creative team's failure to push him as a main event superstar led to plenty of criticism. When Nakamura won this year's Royal Rumble and opted to face Styles at SummerSlam, it looked like a major push was in store.
Styles and Nakamura fought in a fairly entertaining match, but it was The Phenomenal One that emerged victorious to retain his WWE Championship. Nakamura attacked him after to solidify a heel turn, and things have taken a strange twist ever since.
The two fought again at the Greatest Royal Rumble, but the match ended in a double count-out. Another rematch took place at Backlash, but each superstar delivered a low blow on the other - resulting in a no contest.
The two men will try to fight to a clean finish at Money in the Bank this Sunday. But seeing how the creative team has taken unique ways to write Nakamura's character, we wouldn't be surprised if it was another odd finish with no definitive winner.