On the Jan. 10 episode of WWE SmackDown, Braun Strowman defeated Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura in a non-title bout. The victory could set up a future Intercontinental Championship match between the two, but that has yet to be confirmed.
And SmackDown announcer Corey Graves is tired of seeing the champion lose to the potential top contender in non-title affairs.
"I'm really over the potential contender, beating the champion, prior to the championship match. I feel like it happens all the time. Because it does," Graves said on WWE After The Bell. "It happened again on Friday, Braun Strowman beating the Intercontinental Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura. Not only because I'm a massive Nakamura fan and I wanna watch everything he, Cesaro, and Sami Zayn do. I think there's so much money in that trio, I love it. Everything about them. Sami is so obnoxious, you just want to punch him in the face -- which is what a good bad guy does -- and I love Braun Strowman. He's been a man without a country and seems to have direction now and is moving towards the Intercontinental Championship, which I am very okay with. I just want to wait until the championship match to see the contender beat the champion. It makes it feel 'less than.' It's not a bad thing, I just want a different thing. I feel like we see it all the time. I miss wanting to know 'is there any way the champion is going to lose to this guy who is on fire? Can he finally knock off the champion?' I miss that chase and anticipation."
Elsewhere on the podcast, Graves discussed "cheesy storylines" in WWE and how that's not the part of the Attitude Era that fans miss. You can view his full comments by clicking here.
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