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One of the things is that he doesn't seem to have much in the way of sequences. An Orton will duck a clothesline, powerslam. He'll drag someone on the apron into the DDT off the ropes. Cena obviously has his. Styles builds anticipation when he's on the apron ready to springboard for his forearm. Nakamura seems a lot of knees and elbows and not many things from different positions and contexts. Those aforementioned things build anticipation and telegraph what will happen so it's easier to engage and follow. I don't get that with Nakamura. I think he needs that to engage with WWE's main show audience. It's early days as Ziggler was his first match and isn't necessarily a barometer of how he'll fare, but I'm thinking about the whole package and his time in NXT too.

There's clearly something there, but he'll need a fair few adjustments and help with promos to push beyond Owens level.

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1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

AJ Styles jobs to Dolph Ziggler. Who writes this shit?

Everyone has to look "strong" and has to have a win going into the MITB match. Owens will probably beat Nakamura next week and Corbin will pin Zayn (in the Corbin/Ziggler vs. Zayn/Styles match they will book after the opening promo between them that starts next weeks show).

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11 minutes ago, Sphinx said:

One of the things is that he doesn't seem to have much in the way of sequences. An Orton will duck a clothesline, powerslam. He'll drag someone on the apron into the DDT off the ropes. Cena obviously has his. Styles builds anticipation when he's on the apron ready to springboard for his forearm. Nakamura seems a lot of knees and elbows and not many things from different positions and contexts. Those aforementioned things build anticipation and telegraph what will happen so it's easier to engage and follow. I don't get that with Nakamura. I think he needs that to engage with WWE's main show audience.

Knees in the corner --> Inverted Exploder Suplex --> "Yeah-oh!" pose on the ropes --> Kinshasa.

That's the big one, but there are a few other sequences and spots that Nakamura has used regularly since arriving in NXT. Their mistake was to put him straight in a competitive match with Ziggler, when he should have just been wrecking people with that sequence to get it over.

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Nakamura should be the easiest guy on the roster to book. You don't have to think of shit for him to say every week, you don't have to write terrible segments involving horrendous fake talk shows. You just let the other guy talk about him for a few weeks while he exists through video packages and the occasional taped interview and then the week before the PPV, he comes out, says he's gonna win and then does. Piece of piss.

I'd have him wrestle on TV occassionally but I'd build it up as above and make it mean something. Everything about him says he's different. The experience, the look, the entrance, the music, the name. Let him be different.

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2 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Nakamura should be the easiest guy on the roster to book. You don't have to think of shit for him to say every week, you don't have to write terrible segments involving horrendous fake talk shows. You just let the other guy talk about him for a few weeks while he exists through video packages and the occasional taped interview and then the week before the PPV, he comes out, says he's gonna win and then does. Piece of piss.

I'd have him wrestle on TV occassionally but I'd build it up as above and make it mean something. Everything about him says he's different. The experience, the look, the entrance, the music, the name. Let him be different.

This is kind of what they were doing with him leading up to Backlash. But now he is in the MITB match, they do not have the patience to use him any different to others in the match and have to use him and the other five in different matches on the show. They will probably go with Owens/Nakamura and Corbin/Ziggler vs. Zayn/Styles next week and Owens/Corbin/Ziggler vs. Zayn/Styles/Nakamura the week after on the show before the PPV.

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I'm curious to see what happens in MITB with Shinsuke. Honestly, I haven't been all that impressed with him since he joined WWE. Amazing debut against Zayn, but he's rarely come even halfway close to that since. The Joe feud was especially mundane, it almost felt like he wasn't putting effort in. The only other time I've really loved his work was the first match with Roode at Takeover: San Antonio. Then the match with Ziggler was okay, but he sold a ton for someone who was presented as a huge deal. And that's kinda the narrative for Shinsuke Nakamura in my eyes- he's presented as a major star, but the times he delivers on that presentation are few and far between- at least in NXT/WWE so far. It's frustrating because the times I've been impressed by him, I've REALLY been impressed by him. So to see him almost phone it in at times is a struggle.

So then, Nakamura needs to deliver in these main roster big match situations. I don't see him winning MITB- faces rarely win it, and I feel like Corbin's most likely to get it. It's a loaded line up of stars in the one match, so what is he doing to do to stand out? Is he going to bother doing anything? He's on the fast track to being just another guy, but I wouldn't put the blame on that solely on WWE.

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Nakamura seems to be trying to do his best Hulk Hogan in WWE. In that he sells for most of his matches and keeps his offence as simple as possible. The issue with that is he's not over enough and this is the era of move, kick out, move, kick out.

Personally, I enjoy that Nakamura puts the story ahead of flakes. But, again, I can see why some aren't into what he does. Even his New Japan fans are probably underwhelmed because he's doing a lot less.

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2 minutes ago, ColinBollocks said:

Nakamura seems to be trying to do his best Hulk Hogan in WWE. In that he sells for most of his matches and keeps his offence as simple as possible. The issue with that is he's not over enough and this is the era of move, kick out, move, kick out.

I think that's it - WWE are booking him to work a tried and tested WWE babyface formula. But you can't throw that formula straight into a big competitive match; you need time to educate the fans as to what his signature spots, moves and gestures are, so they carry the requisite importance during the match, not by having Dolph Ziggler get heat on him for ten minutes, and not by booking him in a multi-man ladder match clusterfuck.

He should have ran through a couple of schmucks, had a feud with a guy with no real upside or who could survive a quick loss on PPV (like, well, Dolph Ziggler), and been kept away from the MITB match, then given a match at Summerslam with a reasonably big name, maybe AJ Styles just to really show what he can do. They've rushed it.

He's not irredeemable, but they need to dial it back and hone in on what's special about him, rather than letting him just be another guy on the roster. He shouldn't be wrestling on TV on a regular basis, he shouldn't be speaking every week, he shouldn't be wearing a fucking T-shirt on TV, he should be dressed to fit the gimmick in his lovely red blouse, and he should be put over as something special. JBL - who, on stuff like Bring It To The Table, puts him over as the biggest star in the world - shouldn't be shouting about "BUT HE'S IN THE BIG LEAGUES NOW~!" as if he has to prove himself, when the booking is telling us he already matters. Getting people over, in general, isn't actually that difficult. If you can't get Shinsuke Nakamura over, and make a ton of money off him, I'd have to question if you have any business booking a wrestling show in the first place.

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As someone who has never watched a single match from Japan, and only seen bits of his NXT stuff, what is Nakamura supposed to be, gimmick wide? I've heard him called a rockstar loads, but he doesn't(to me) look like a rockstar, doesn't really act like one and his entrance music isn't really rock, so why has he been given that nickname? 

Also, don't get his entrance(barring that bit where he falls down as the violin stops). Why does he do that little arm crossed movement and look like he's about to burst into tears?

These are genuine questions by the way, not a criticism disguised as question. I genuinely don't know what to make of him.. 

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