According to WrestlingStandard.com, WWE called an audible and decided to end the AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakmura early, with original plans calling for the feud to continue beyond Money in the Bank.
Following the decision to end the feud, Nakamura was inserted into a U.S. Title feud with Jeff Hardy, and despite the hurdle of a police dog bite, Nakamura will get his title shot at WWE Extreme Rules this month.
The report furthers that Andrade “Cien” Almas, who has yet to have his teased television match with Sin Cara, was originally tapped to face Hardy in the United States Title program, however the call was made to scrap Almas and go with Nakamura instead.
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The report adds Vince McMahon is very high on the idea of foreign heel United States Champions, as evidenced in the past with stars such as Rusev. “[Vince] loves a foreign heel as US Champion”, noted a source, “it was going to be Cien but it’ll [now]probably be Nakamura”.
Furthermore, the decision to have AJ Styles retain the WWE Title in his feud against Nakamura was said to have been based largely on Styles landing the cover of WWE 2K19, so the company did not want the game cover announcement to come on the heels of Styles dropping the title. If Nakamura does indeed defeat Jeff Hardy for the title, it will likely be as “compensation” for the decision not to award him the WWE Title, as original plans did call for Nakamura to hold the title for a brief amount of time before dropping it back to Styles.