Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy United States Championship Rematch Announced for SmackDown Live

It only took Shinsuke Nakamura six seconds to win the United States Championship on Sunday when he defeated Jeff Hardy at Extreme Rules.

But, thanks to SmackDown Live general manager Paige, he’ll have to do it all over again very soon. WWE announced via Twitter on Sunday night that a rematch between the two is set to take place on SmackDown Live on Tuesday night.

Nakamura won the title via nefarious means, hitting Hardy with a low blow just as the referee was handing the championship to the timekeeper. Hardy refused to run from the match and demanded the referee ring the bell to start things off, which gave Nakamura the perfect opening to hit a Kinshasa for the win.

The shock and celebration was cut short however, as Randy Orton made his way out to the ring for the first time since he underwent knee surgery in May. He stared down Nakamura from inside the ring, then attacked Hardy with a low blow of his own. Hardy and Orton had a brief feud earlier in the year, with “The Charismatic Enigma” successfully defending the US Title against Orton at the Backlash pay-per-view.

Once the pay-per-view was off the air, Nakamura took to Twitter to pose and celebrate with the title.

“Keep your eyes on what matter,” Nakamura wrote. “Open them long enough to witness a change.”

The two-time NXT Champion suffered a title drought when he initially joined the main roster in May 2017. He earned his first world championship opportunity after winning the Royal Rumble back in January, but failed to defeat AJ Styles for the WWE Championship on four consecutive pay-per-view bouts. The last of which was a Last Man Standing match at Money in the Bank, which Styles won by driving Nakamura through the announcer’s table with a Phenomenal Forearm.

The US Title turned out to be the only SmackDown championship to change hands on Sunday night in Pittsburgh. The Bludgeon Brothers defeated Team Hell No to keep the SmackDown Tag Team Championships after assaulting their opponents backstage beforehand, and Carmella kept the SmackDown Women’s Championship thanks to another distraction by James Ellsworth in her match with Carmella.