Roman Reigns Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Announced For WWE SmackDown

The Big Dog gets a shot at the Intercontinental Title on tomorrow night's Smackers.

by Andrew Pollard
WWE SmackDown Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Roman Reigns
WWE.com

As WWE looks to do its best to make SmackDown feel like a big deal, the company has turned to the tried and tested idea of giving Roman Reigns a title shot.

Officially announced for tomorrow night’s SmackDown, Reigns will be challenging for Shinsuke Nakamura’s Intercontinental Championship.

This match all stemmed from some Twitter bickering between Shinsuke’s mouthpiece Sami Zayn and WWE’s resident Big Dog.

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Earlier this week, wrestling fans were left a little shocked after Eric Bischoff was formally removed from his duties as Executive Director of SmackDown and replaced by Bruce Prichard. Prichard has famously been a long, long-time cohort of Vince McMahon’s and viewed by many as the consummate Yes Man (no, not in a Daniel Bryan way) to Vinny Mac.

For those of us who are eagerly awaiting for SmackDown to be given a new sense of energy and an upturn from the dross of recent months, tonight’s outing for the blue brand is absolutely huge – with this being the first week where SmackDown can really be taken on its own merits since moving to FOX.

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That FOX premiere was heftily boosted by the presence of a certain Great One and then by the arrival of Cain Velasquez, while last week’s SmackDown was bogged down by the WWE Draft. Now though, it’s time for SmackDown to hopefully get its sh*t together and once again start to deliver an engaging product.

This week’s SmackDown takes place from the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.