They’re Changing In A Hurry. Title Change And Heel Turn Take Place On SmackDown Live.

Well that was a surprising change. Earlier this week on the Royal Rumble Kickoff Show, Shinsuke Nakamura won the United States Title back from Rusev. This was a bit of a surprise as Rusev had only held the title for about a month and seemed likely to beat Nakamura and retain the title this time too. That wasn’t the case, but there was a lot more to be done with the title soon thereafter.

This week on SmackDown Live, R-Truth pinned Nakamura to become the new champion. The finish of the match was a bit strange, as R-Truth rolled Nakamura up for three, even though there seemed to have been a kickout before the pin. R-Truth was announced as the new champion but Rusev came out and challenged him to a title match. Rusev lost the match but joined Nakamura in a post match beatdown of R-Truth, turning heel in the process.

Here’s how things went down to start. Check out the first title change that started it all:

Rusev batters Shinsuke Nakamura in U.S. Title Match: Royal Rumble 2019 Kickoff

Opinion: That was certainly weird, but at least it shook things up a bit. There’s little reason to have taken the title from Rusev in the first place, but it was nice to have an actual surprise with the R-Truth title win. I’ll take a quick angle like this over the long form dullness that has surrounded the title for so long, so at least we got a little something out of this.

Do you like the title changes? Who do you want to get the title next? Let us know in the comments below.