Shinsuke Nakamura Explains His Ordeal With His Management That Led To His Under Performance Since..
There was a run of a few months in 2023 where it felt like WWE was finally going to try and replicate the star power Shinsuke Nakamura demonstrated when he competed in New Japan.
A heel Nakamura was chasing Seth Rollins and the World Title, targeting the then-World Champion’s real-life injuries. How things have changed in a short space of time as we near the midway point of 2024 and Nakamura has a single win to his name.
Wrestlelamia highlighted the disappointing statistic, breaking down the numbers and revealing The King of Strong Style’s 2024 scorecard reads 1-39 so far, a win rate of just 2.5 percent.
Nakamura can’t even point to wrestling fewer matches than most so far in WWE as with 40 outings under his belt already, only four Superstars have wrestled more matches than he has in 2024. All of them have a lot more victories to their names than he does too.
There’s an argument to be made that Nakamura’s recent record makes for even grimmer reading if you venture back into 2023 as he suffered quite a few defeats at the end of last year too. The Japanese star has won just two in his last 52 matches. That brings his win percentage up a little, but not much (3.8 percent).
The only silver lining is that most of Nakamura’s losses have come at live events, although he has lost matches on TV to the likes of Sheamus, Ilja Dragunov, and Cody Rhodes.
When Nakamura emerged as Rollins’ first World Title challenger, there was a hope that he might even eventually dethrone The Architect, especially after how many opportunities Nakamura was given to beat Rollins.
It was also suggested that WWE was trying to transform Nakamura into one of its bigger stars to show Kazuchika Okada that foreign stars can be more than just stereotypes in WWE now that the Vince McMahon era is over.
That Nakamura has now been relegated to losing over and over again adds more credence to the belief that his push was a tool to try and tempt Okada into signing with WWE.
The Rainmaker chose to sign with AEW instead and now there’s no chance of him signing with WWE, the promotion doesn’t feel the need to prove anything to him by pushing Okada. Whatever the reason is behind the misuse of Nakamura, it’s a shame to see someone as talented as he is being utilized so poorly.