6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Greatest Royal Rumble

3. Countout Not Satisfying, But Appropriate

AJ Styles Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE.com

It’s a shame that AJ Style and Shinsuke Nakamura seemed to be putting together a better match at Greatest Royal Rumble than they had at WrestleMania, because unlike their ‘Mania match, this one did not have a definitive finish.

After an intense battle – which seemingly benefited from Nakamura turning heel via a series of low blows – both men spilled outside and continued to fight, resulting in a double countout. That was a disappointing finish to the match, but it’s one that actually made sense given the rivalry. Styles won cleaning at WM, but Shinsuke had been getting the upper hand lately via low blows.

A clean finish would have not worked as well at this point, and while a DQ by Nakamura would have been fine to continue the storyline, this finish sets them up for another rematch, possibly a falls count anywhere match.

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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.