Shinsuke thanks the internet for some of his popularity.
Former 5-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura had to relinquish the title due to the news of him signing exclusively with the WWE. Nakamura arrived onto the NXT scene during WrestleMania 32 weekend in Dallas where he bested Sami Zayn in a highly regarded match. Four months after his debut Shinsuke Nakamura captured the NXT Championship when he defeated Samoa Joe at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II. With a brief pit-stop in his run as champion, Nakamura went on to hold the NXT title for a second time and reigned until January of 2017.
While the SmackDown roster was in Japan recently for their back-to-back live events Shinsuke Nakamura spoke with 'Line News' and during their discussion Nakamura credited social media for establishing some of the popularity he had coming into his debut with NXT and for making the fans familiar with what he does in the ring as well as who he is.
"When I first got [to] NXT, the customers accepted it to a certain extent. The Internet was what helped me. When I decided to see Japanese pro wrestling abroad in the past, there was only such a way of borrowing a video of a Japanese television program at a video shop or using a correspondence column of a pro wrestling magazine. Thanks to the popularization of the net, if it's interesting pro-wrestling, it has become popular around the world and it's possible to actually watch a video so before trying out what styles I can accept in the USA, customers already had preparations for me, even though it was said that being accepted from the beginning is a hurdle, [it] was high from the beginning". Shinsuke stated.
Following his WWE Championship match at WrestleMania 34 Shinsuke Nakamura low-blowed AJ Styles and soon underwent an attitude change as well as adapting new theme music with a Japanese-rock loop mixed into it. Nakamura stated that the change in theme music was the call of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Nakamura feels that the reaction he is currently receiving was Vince's intentions for him all along following his character change.
"Vince is truly amazing. We talk about [it] every week, but it [he] seems to be a mad scientist, a terrible genius." Nakamura continued, "From there I got a Japanese lap in my theme song, but that was also Vince's idea. When I first heard it, I was surprised. When I heard Japanese people, I did not know what they were saying. Then, but when I asked the story, I had [the] proper intention. To be sure there was only a sense of incompatibility in the theme song that became rapped, but when I was told, that kind of incompatibility was originally what I was looking for." Shinsuke said. "I was in New Japan [Pro] wrestling and Became a heel. I made a character named Makoto Nakamura in the morning, but I thought what [fans] wanted at that time was irritating. That is where you have to give a little disgusting feeling to the customer, but it will eventually become a habit to become an unforgettable existence. Vince [wanted] to amplify the negative feelings of customers. I put noise in my songs that I have been listening to so far, the sense of incompatibility I felt is just the reaction as intended by Vince."
Nakamura will be in action tonight on SmackDown Live as he goes one-on-one with AJ Styles in their sixth match thus far in 2018. The Fightful SmackDown play-by-play article will go up at 7 PM so keep an eye out for that so you chat in the comment section about what goes down during the show.