Category: World Wide Wrestling RPG

So, here’s a question for my fellow smart marks and wrestling industry insiders.

Why in the world is Shinsuke Nakamura not on the main WWE roster yet? I can understand why he spent 2016 down in Florida – to get used to working “WWE Style”, to boost the NXT brand as a dominant champion, and perhaps to brush up on his English-language skills and promos. I get that. It’s not like he needed any pointers on how to put on a freaking amazing match – his WWE debut with Sami Zayn proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, for anyone who wasn’t already familiar with his NJPW work.

But here’s the thing. It’s been a year, and he’s had two solid runs with the NXT Championship, recently dropping the belt to Bobby Roode. Usually, when someone loses the NXT belt, it’s a sign that they’re about to “graduate” up to the main roster, but I have heard no rumors about Nakamura moving up anytime soon.

Is the language issue really that big a concern? He’s proven in NXT that he can get his points across, and if WWE is really concerned about this, why not assign him a manager to do his promos? I mean, this is exactly the sort of guy that Paul Heyman could work wonders with. Imagine Brock turning on Paul in frustration over his Goldberg problems, and Paul calling in The Most Dangerous Striker In The Game, The King of Strong Style, to defend him from the Beast? Or Paul creates a new stable of monsters with Brock as the foundation, and then adding people like Nakamura and Asuka (there’s another one overdue for the main roster) to that stable, striking absolute terror in anyone they cross paths with. Nakamura tears it up in the ring, getting massively over on the strength of his ring work, raw charisma, and awesome entrances, and Paul handles most of his promo work until he can smooth out his own English skills a bit. What’s wrong with that?

It doesn’t even need to be Paul – there’s got to be plenty of wrestlers who speak fluent Japanese from their travels, for example, so maybe Nakamura pairs up with one of them who acts as his translator? Sami Zayn comes immediately to mind as someone likely to speak the lingo. Zayne and Nakamura have huge in-storyline respect for each other after last year’s match, so they could cut promos together with Sami helping Nakamura convey some of the trickier aspects of whatever storyline they’re in.

My hope is that they’re quietly preparing Nakamura to make some sort of massive surprise entrance at Wrestlemania, to try and create a new “Wrestlemania moment”, although I don’t know off-hand who they would likely aim him at for his first feud. I don’t see Nakamura/Undertaker as being a thing, and it seems unlikely that they’d be comfortable with the massive pop that Nakamura would get for cracking open Roman Reigns’ head with a well-placed Kinshasa. Maybe have him debut with Sami Zayn again, a callback to last year’s NXT debut, and try to have them recreate that magic?

What do you all think?

He’s got the whoooooole world… in his hands….