5 Things WWE subtly told us on SmackDown: Former Champion officially a babyface, Superstar gets career-defining win ahead of Royal Rumble 2021 (January 29th, 2021)
Welcome to this week's edition of things WWE subtly told us on the SmackDown before Royal Rumble 2021. It was an interesting episode, but the overall flow of SmackDown was quite messy and inconsistent.
Let's start with the main event and what went down on SmackDown:
#5 Shinsuke Nakamura and the main event of SmackDown
We're admittedly confused about Shinsuke Nakamura's status on SmackDown. After the gauntlet match where he fell short to Adam Pearce, it appeared as though WWE was planning something big with him.
It turned into nothing, but a face turn has come out of it. As a result, his partnership with Cesaro quietly ended - though they did have a moment of confrontation on SmackDown. That moment saw the two go face-to-face, but they didn't touch each other, instead of focusing on other stars.
As mentioned, the entire flow of the show was off, and we had stars from RAW popping in and out.
The originally scheduled main event was between AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan in a dream match on SmackDown. Before we get to that, we would like to mention a brief interaction between Sami Zayn and his old ally Shinsuke Nakamura. He asked Nakamura to join back with him since his "best work" in WWE was with Sami Zayn (not incorrect).
Shinsuke Nakamura told Sami Zayn to "go to hell" and walked away. Back to the main event, things got messy. There was a no-contest thanks to interferences from Sami Zayn, Big E, and Cesaro.
Ultimately, it ended up becoming a six-man tag team match on SmackDown - with Shinsuke Nakamura teaming up alongside Daniel Bryan and Big E to take on AJ Styles, Cesaro, and Sami Zayn.
Things got more chaotic after The Miz and John Morrison came out, and a 5-on-3 handicap match became 5-on-4 after Otis returned. And then, for some odd reason, Sheamus comes out of nowhere to join the team of babyfaces. He ended up picking up the win after pinning Sami Zayn.
While Shinsuke Nakamura's babyface turn is now more than official, we have to question the chaotic nature of the main event. Not much was planned in it, and it all felt too random - with too many things happening too fast. Hopefully, WWE avoids doing that going forward.