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Shinsuke Nakamura’s Next WWE Smackdown Rivalry Revealed

Shinsuke Nakamura

There will be a new rival for Shinsuke Nakamura upon his return to WWE Smackdown on April 14th.

During the April 7 edition of Smackdown, WWE announced that Shinsuke Nakamura would return to television tonight. The WWE.com preview notes that Nakamura will be in a match although the opponent hasn’t been announced yet.

However, there is some news about who Nakamura will be feuding with upon his Smackdown return. Fightful Select reports that Nakamura will start a rivalry with Karrion Kross. It was also noted that WWE produced a Nakamura tarot card since Kross and his wife Scarlett often use those to issue warnings to their next victims.

The last time Shinsuke Nakamura had a televised match on WWE television was on the November 11, 2022 edition of Smackdown when he lost a World Cup match to Santos Escobar.

Other than that loss to Escobar, Nakamura wrestled on live events in December 2022 and a few in January 2023, but other than that he has been off. It’s unknown if he had an injury of any kind that caused his lengthy absence or perhaps WWE simply wanted to give him a break.

The last match that Nakamura had that was televised was at the NOAH show on January 1 which was part of Muta’s retirement tour to start 2023. Nakamura beat Muta in that match.

During his WWE career, the 43-year-old Nakamura is a two-time Intercontinental Champion, two-time Smackdown Champion, 2018 Royal Rumble winner, a Smackdown Tag Team Champion and a two-time NXT Champion.

In addition to Shinsuke Nakamura returning on tonight’s edition of WWE Smackdown, Xavier Woods will also face LA Knight in singles action.