5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Survivor Series: WarGames 2024 (Results & Review)

4. A Heatless Title Change

WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2024 Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE

Under Triple H’s reign, WWE does not book PLE title changes regularly. Outside of WrestleMania and SummerSlam, titles have rarely changed hands at PLEs this year.

Given that, it’s not unreasonable that the company would book a shock title change on one of its “Big Four” events, but that doesn’t mean it makes for a memorable, entertaining moment for fans.

Shinsuke Nakamura captured the United States Championship on Saturday, just weeks after returning, dethroning LA Knight and ending his reign at just shy of four months. The match, however, was a pedestrian affair, with Nakamura controlling with his usual array of kicks and strikes. Knight fought back with a DDT, his version of a Burning Hammer, and a leaping top-rope elbow, but Deathdrop on the steel between the two rings and a Kinshasa was enough for Shinsuke.

Booking a title change isn’t the worst idea – Knight likely works a lot better when chasing a title rather than holding it – but Nakamura hasn’t been hot as a character in years, and his ringwork has been far from captivating in that time. Another United States Championship reign isn’t going to rehabilitate Shinsuke’s image and suddenly make him an over character. But here we are.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.