Steve Austin is one of the best wrestlers ever, and has transitioned to having one of the most influential wrestling podcasts today. On his Steve Austin Show podcast recently, Austin had his good friend Jim Ross (arguably the best announcer in wrestling history) on the show to talk about a number of wrestling topics.
Austin focused on Shinsuke Nakamura during the discussion and made it clear that he feels like Nakamura could be a bigger star in WWE. Thanks to WrestlingInc for the quotes.
“You bring him over and he’s going 30-minute broadways with half the damn roster. Debuted down there in WrestleMania 32, NXT, with Sami Zayn, hell of a match. Hell of a match! A lot of credit to Sami Zayn and Shinsuke, but here’s ‘The King Of Strong Style’ and all-of-a-sudden, he comes in and he’s working Dolph [Ziggler] and it took him a long time to finish off Dolph for ‘The King Of Strong Style’. Do you understand where I’m going with this gimmick? That’s booking though. What is the plan? You’ve got this guy who’s one of those talents that just don’t come around every single day. He’s special. He comes in and you treat him like he’s another Joe Blow.”
Austin makes a great point. Nakamura should be portrayed as a more special talent rather than a guy that needs 15 minutes to put away Dolph Ziggler. That’s not a knock on Ziggler, either. I like him and Austin probably does, too. The problem is Nakamura having a back and forth match with Ziggler doesn’t put over Nakamura enough. The good news is that when Nakamura faced Baron Corbin on Smackdown this past week it was a ten minute match with Nakamura dominating much of it. That’s the perfect way to book Nakamura, and I hope it continues.
The discussion between Austin and Ross also focused on AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura. You may have read the story we posted yesterday with AJ Styles saying he wants to face Nakamura at WrestleMania. Here’s what Austin had to say on that subject:
“I think Shinsuke Nakamura, we haven’t seen his best yet and I think AJ Styles may be as good of a worker as I’ve seen in years. He may be the best worker in the world right now. You felt something in the crowd at [WWE Money In The Bank] with Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ. The fans that’ve followed their career know they’ve got a great history. And they’ve, I’ve seen it, had one of the best matches I’ve ever seen with Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ. We haven’t seen that yet in Shinsuke, but that WrestleMania match would be a great wrestling match.”
Austin agreed with Ross on that idea.
“I know that Styles is going to bring the best out of Shinsuke because I don’t think, from what I’ve seen, we’ve seen Shinsuke’s best in [WWE]. I’m sure he will get the best of that guy. I’m sure they’re great friends from way back or whatever the deal is. But from what I know of AJ, if Shinsuke’s going to really work his ass off, it’s going to be with Styles.”
The match that Ross was referencing with Nakamura and Styles was from Wrestle Kingdom 10 in New Japan Pro Wrestling on January 4, 2016. Shortly after that match, both guys left NJPW and Styles debuted in WWE in the Royal Rumble later that month. They’ve yet to have a singles match in WWE, Styles wants it to happen at WrestleMania and if WWE is smart, that’s when they’ll do it.
For more of the discussion between Austin and Ross, check out the Steve Austin Podcast now.
