Daniel Bryan Wants To Wrestle Shinsuke Nakamura In Japan

During WrestleMania weekend, Daniel Bryan had an interview with the folks over at Title Match Wrestling. The video finally made its way online yesterday, and I definitely recommend checking it out. It’s entertaining all the way through, especially when he touches on his old-school NES knowledge (shout-out to KING SLENDER) and his Pro Wrestling Noah clashes with Hideo Itami, then known as KENTA. However, see if you can spot the part where my eyes got really big, and smoke started pouring out of my ears.

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You all heard that, right?

“I pitched this… I want to wrestle Shinsuke Nakamura. He and I lived together for a brief bit in Santa Monica, California, and we’re doing a tour of Japan soon. And I thought, ‘Oh, what a great inter-promotional thing it would be if I were to wrestle Shinsuke Nakamura…’

…But I don’t know if anybody really bought that idea.”

Pardon me for a second, I’m furiously doing the YES! chant alone in my room for a bit.

Okay, so will this ever happen? I’m going to guess that it won’t. WWE is not in the business of cross-promotion; when you’re already No. 1, doing business with anyone in the same industry is seen as lowering yourself, even if that’s not technically the case. Is it ever fun to think about, though. Bryan and Nakamura would be a great fit for each other, so I got to wondering, what other crossover matches would I like to see? If I’m building the card for WWE vs. NJPW: WrestleKingdomMania, what needs to happen? Here are just a few of the things I came up with:

Sheamus vs. Togi Makabe. I already mentioned in my introductory look at the NJPW heavyweight roster that this was a match I wanted to see, and nothing has changed. Both of these guys are at their best when they’re simply BEATING UP people, so it’s an easy pick for the hoss-fight of the night.
Kalisto vs. El Desperado. Kalisto only recently got his call-up to Raw, but he’s far from a rookie. What happens when an American-born luchador and a Japanese-born luchador square off in a junior heavyweight showcase?
Cesaro and Tyson Kidd vs. Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata. Japan, Canada, and Switzerland are represented in this international affair. Ideally, this would be title for title, but Meiyu Tag couldn’t even muster one successful defense of the IWGP tag team belts. THANKS A LOT, BULLET CLUB.
Seth Rollins vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. The champion versus the ace. The popular choice would probably be John Cena versus Tanahashi, considering their similar trajectories, but I’ve got to throw a curveball here. Unless Cena wants to work the match as a heel and start practicing his Phoenix Splash, of course…
Randy Orton vs. Kazuchika Okada. The “Technically, He’s A Heel, But He Does Awesome Stuff” match. I want dropkicks. I want an RKO to counter Okada’s elbow drop. I want a fight between grown-ass men to see who the coolest person in the building is. (It’s Okada by a long shot. Don’t tell Randy.)
Triple H vs. Minoru Suzuki. Two incredibly power-hungry maniacs in their mid-40s seems like a recipe for success to me. I hope Triple H didn’t throw away that Terminator exoskeleton. He’d probably need it. Also, J&J Security must interact with Taka Michinoku and Taichi somehow.

That’s just a small sampling off the top of my head. I’m sure I could whip up an entire tournament or something if I devoted some real time to it. What do you think, did I miss anything obvious? Go ahead and name your dream WWE vs. NJPW match in the comments! Bonus points if you come up with a way to make Roman Reigns look really strong.

**UPDATE**

It seems that Nakamura is also into this idea: