Paige Announces Major Segment for This Week’s SmackDown

WWE SmackDown’s general manager Paige has announced a big segment for this coming week’s show.

Paige revealed via Twitter that a contract signing between champion AJ Styles and challenger Shinsuke Nakamura will happen on SmackDown. The segment will be conducted as a “personal sitdown contract signing,” according to Paige, and she will serve as moderator for the segment.

The full statement released by Paige is as follows:

“There’s been a lot words, there’s been a lot of kicks, there’s been a lot of low blows. So to make sure their match goes as smoothly as possible I’ve come up with an idea where I will be personally moderating a personal sitdown contract signing between both of them.”

Styles and Nakamura are in the midst of a feud that goes back three months now and encompasses several high profile matches, though the Last Man Standing Match that the pair will take part in at Money In The Bank seems as if it has the potential to be the best of their 2018 series.

Styles vs. Nakamura achieved legendary status when the duo had an excellent match for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s WrestleKingdom 10 in 2016. That was the very first time the pair had ever fought in a singles match and it turned into one of the best matches of the year.

Their WWE series of matches in 2018 has not quite lived up to expectations for a multitude of reasons. First off, the expectations were sky high heading in due to their legendary New Japan match. It’s hard to live up to that kind of standard.

Even so, Styles and Nakamura seemingly hasn’t achieved the level of greatness they are capable of and each match has lacked a little bit, though they have steadily gotten better. Their first encounter this year at WrestleMania was more notable for the action after the final bell, as Nakamura made his heel turn at that show.

Since that time, they have wrestled at Greatest Royal Rumble, Backlash, and SmackDown. Greatest Royal Rumble saw the match end in a double count-out, Backlash ended in a no contest as neither man could answer a 10 count due to simultaneous low blows, and Nakamura won the SmackDown television match which allowed him to pick the stipulation of the upcoming Money in the Bank match.

It will be interesting how Paige will be used in the segment this week. Due to Paige’s retirement from injury, she can’t be around any kind of risky physical content in the ring. If Nakamura and Styles come to blows, SmackDown’s general manager is going to have to bail out of the ring as soon as possible.