Shinsuke Nakamura Beats Jeff Hardy, Retains US Title at WWE SummerSlam 2018

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Jeff Hardy at SummerSlam on Sunday night in Brooklyn, New York, to retain the United States Championship.

The turning point came when Hardy missed a Swanton Bomb on the edge of the ring apron.

From there, Nakamura was able to hit Kinshasa for the win.

Randy Orton would appear after the match, but ended up walking away before getting into any sort of physical altercation with Hardy.

Hardy was out for revenge at SummerSlam after dropping the U.S. title to Nakamura in controversial fashion at Extreme Rules last month.

Before the July 15 bout started, Nakamura hit Hardy with a low blow. Once the bell rang, The King of Strong Style followed that up with a Kinshasa, beating his opponent in seconds.

After Nakamura's win, Orton made his return from injury. While it initially looked as though he was going to make Nakamura pay for cheating, The Viper viciously attacked Hardy instead.

During the rematch two nights later on SmackDown Live, Orton interfered and once again set his sights on Hardy.

Orton's second beatdown of Hardy was even worse than the first, as he stuck his finger in the hole left by Hardy's vacated gauge earring and pulled while The Charismatic Enigma screamed in pain.

In subsequent weeks, Orton continued to make life miserable for Hardy by pummeling him, stomping him and even going so far as to wash off his face paint in an effort to erase everything that made him so popular with the WWE Universe.

Throughout Orton's stalking of Hardy, Nakamura was the primary beneficiary, as he was able to clean up the scraps and get his shots in as well.

It was widely expected leading up to SummerSlam that the United States Championship match would be a Triple Threat with Orton involved, but SmackDown Live general manager Paige stuck with a singles bout between Nakamura and Hardy because of the manner in which the initial rematch was interrupted.

Even so, Hardy was forced to essentially look over his shoulder during Sunday's match since the possibility of more Orton interference was obvious.

In addition to Orton, Hardy had to worry about Nakamura, who remains a highly dangerous competitor despite his questionable heel antics.

With so much adversity working against Hardy, he failed to regain the United States Championship at SummerSlam.

Based on that and his recent interactions with Orton, all signs now point toward a long-term feud with The Viper moving forward.

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