5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2018

2. Nakamura, Rusev Set The Bar

rusev nakamura
WWE.com

It took a couple minutes to get going, but Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev had a great opening bout Sunday night, firing up the crowd.

The two wrestlers traded flurries of offense throughout the match, with Nakamura using his strikes and knees to slow down the Bulgarian Brute, while Rusev hit his own impressive kicks, including a Matchka Kick to counter a Kinshasa attempt.

In the end, Shinsuke escaped an Accolade attempt to hit two Kinshasas to final put Rusev down. While the result really never was in doubt, it was pleasantly surprising to see how well and how long Rusev hung in there, scoring near-falls over the WrestleMania-bound Nakamura.

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Contributor
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.