Video: Daniel Bryan vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Takes Place After SmackDown

Would this be considered a kick off match? When Daniel Bryan was announced as being medically cleared to return to the ring earlier this year, the first thing that a lot of fans wanted to do was put together a list of potential opponents for him to face (I was one of them). The possibilities were looking more and more interesting time after time and that’s what we’re actually getting now. Three weeks ago we saw Bryan vs. AJ Styles and tonight after SmackDown Live, the fans in attendance got to see something special.

We’ll see this one again.

According to 411mania.com, the dark match after this week’s SmackDown Live and 205 Live tapings saw Bryan facing Shinsuke Nakamura. The match, the ending of which you can see above, ended with Bryan firing off the YES Kicks but missing the big one, allowing Nakamura to hit Bryan low for the DQ finish. This is their first match in WWE and their first singles match ever. During the show, Bryan had been announced as not being medically cleared to wrestle due to a potential infection, but the statement was only part of a storyline.

Opinion: Now you know this is likely to be the first of many as these two are almost destined to have a major match at some point on pay per view. Bryan and Nakamura have a lot of similarities to go with their host of differences, which can make for a heck of a match. If nothing else you have Nakamura as the big villain at the moment and who better to take him on than the beloved underdog Bryan? The story writes itself and I’m sure there’s some old school footage of the two of them to be found to really hammer things home.

Does this match interest you? Who do you want to see Bryan face? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 26 wrestling books. His latest book is the WWE Grab Bag.

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