WWE News: Shinsuke Nakamura Missed Smackdown Live Due to Dog Bite

Shinsuke Nakamura was scheduled to challenge Jeff Hardy for the United States Championship on WWE Smackdown Live this week. It was promoted for a few days, they ran a commercial for it on Raw, it was advertised for Smackdown until Thursday and then Nakamura was pulled from the match. During the Smackdown broadcast, the announcers just said that Nakamura was not cleared to wrestle leading to Hardy having a US Title open challenge that was answered by Eric Young.

What happened to Nakamura? Nakamura got bit in the leg by a police dog so badly that he was not cleared to wrestle.

According to PWInsider, Nakamura was bitten on the leg by a law enforcement dog at Monday’s Smackdown live event in Bakersfield, California. The dog was at the building as part of the security check that happens before the show and when the dog went by Nakamura, apparently he bit Nakamura. It is not believed that Nakamura did anything to provoke the dog, but the dog ended up biting Nakamura.

That led to Nakamura getting taken off the card of the live event on Monday night where was supposed to be in a Fatal 4-Way main event match. It ended up being Jeff Hardy winning the 4-Way over Rusev, Samoa Joe and Shelton Benjamin, who took Nakamura’s place.

Nakamura was backstage at Smackdown in Ontario, California tonight, but he was not cleared to return by WWE doctors.

The Smackdown crew is flying to Japan tomorrow for a live event in Tokyo, Japan on Friday. Obviously, Nakamura is a big part of that live event since he’s from Japan and a main event level star. It’s not known if Nakamura will be cleared for action on Friday, but hopefully he’ll be able to compete in front of the fans in the home country.

The moral of this story is…beware of dog…even when it’s with the cops.