Court Bauer or MLW Radio, who broke the news of the four major NJPW stars possibly signing with WWE, has reported one of the major reasoning behind WWE bringing in Shinsuke Nakamura. Here is the original tweet by MLW Radio:
Internal plans are for @ShinsukeN to be one of the faces of the @WWENetwork’s launch in Japan. The service became available on January 5th.
— MLW (@MLW) January 7, 2016
WWE Network was just launched in Japan on January 5th of this year. With the expansion of WWE Network into The Land of the Rising Sun, they felt like they needed an additional big name from Japan to help with the launch.
Hideo Itami was set to be that star, but he has been out of action with injury for months. The signing of Asuka was done to not only bolster the NXT Women’s Division, but to also help be a major draw for Japanese WWE Network subscriptions.
Shinsuke Nakamura is one of the biggest stars in NJPW & has major cross-over appeal due to his ever growing popularity in America from his appearances with Ring of Honor over the past couple of years. It was also reported in the past that Nakamura is a huge fan of American pop culture & has wanted to come back to America for an extended stay while he was still in the prime of his career.
This has to be looked at as a win-win situation for all parties involved. I’ve seen the apprehension from wrestling fans about how WWE is going to utilize Nakamura creatively & believe me, I understand your concern.
In the past, WWE has treated Japanese wrestlers in a very stereotypical manner (as they do with most minorities in America). But Nakamura is a different kind of cat. If you haven’t seen much of him, I would take a minute and watch the video below. He has loads of charisma; likely the most that WWE has seen from any Japanese wrestler in the past. This is a highly regarded match between Shinsuke Nakamura & Kota Ibushi in NJPW.
2015.01.04- Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs Kota Ibushi
I have faith and confidence in WWE with the Nakamura signing. Their ultimate goal is to expand the WWE Network into Japan where there is a huge wrestling fanbase. On top of that, there are many huge dream matches that can take place with Nakamura now on the main roster.
Daniel Bryan has spoken openly about how he once pitched an idea for a crossover match against Nakamura. The two men have ties that go back many years to when they roomed together. Bryan had this to say about Nakamura shortly before WrestleMania 31 last year:
“One of my friends is Shinsuke Nakamura, who wrestles for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and we used to room together. He did that with their Intercontinental championship to where at this last Tokyo show the Intercontinental championship main evented over their Heavyweight championship, which if I win the Intercontinental championship that would be my goal. I want people to be more excited to see what I am doing with the Intercontinental title than anything that is going on with the Heavyweight title.”
The idea of a Daniel Bryan vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match is something that will have the entire wrestling world foaming at the mouth to see. Another major contest would be against Kevin Owens. They had an acclaimed match against each other in Ring of Honor a few years ago.
How about current Intercontinental Champion Dean Ambrose? Nakamura took the NJPW Intercontinental Championship to new heights that it hadn’t seen before. He’s held the NJPW Intercontinental Championship 5 times for a near 1,000 combined days! Could he be gunning for the WWE Intercontinental Championship?
The list goes on and on with the amount of possible opponents and fantastic matches that can take place with Shinsuke Nakamura on the WWE roster. Wrestling fans need to open up their imaginations and just enjoy the ride that we could be embarking on. Don’t get so caught up in something that you really can’t control; the direction of WWE creative.
Wrestling fans are also worrying about WWE toning down his style. Nakamura’s in-ring style is heavy on knee strikes and in Japan, there is an overall different style than WWE implements most of the time. The knee strikes can still work because if you watch closely, Nakamura uses them very safely. Sure, it looks like he’s trying to kill his opponent with them…and that’s the point! If WWE wanted him to completely change his style, they probably wouldn’t bother bringing him in. With that being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he still implemented his Boma Ye knee strike as his finisher.
it still isn’t 100% confirmed that Shinsuke Nakamura will be joining WWE. All signs are pointing in that direction, but we still do not know for sure. Either way, the wrestling world is buzzing like we haven’t seen in a long time & anything to draw positive attention to the business is a good thing at this point.