10 Absolute Best Matches WWE Can Promote In 2019

10. Brock Lesnar Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

It feels like bargaining, almost, selecting Shinsuke Nakamura in a list such as this—he’s just a little totally and utterly checked out, he’s still good, he’s still good—and arguably, the impetus behind the pitch is as about as inspired as the hot take of what constitutes a worthwhile Suplex City-era Brock Lesnar these days: just put him against somebody smaller than him, have him beat the piss out of that smaller opponent, and have that smaller opponent fight back at the death in a spot of last-ditch, white-hot drama.

But that dynamic, while a winner of a formula, has been explored heavily over recent months. A formula within a formula, there is a danger that it becomes too predictable.

Of the best performers to complete that dynamic, Shinsuke Nakamura brings something different to it, if indeed he is still capable. Daniel Bryan used scheming and his submission savvy to create face-scraping fever pitch at Survivor Series, while Bálor blitzed Suplex City with an urgent aerial assault.

Drawing on the memories of Nakamura’s NJPW days can only invite disappointment, but his fluid, creative Rainmaker-to-armbar reversal in the classic G1 Climax final of 2014 sparks hope of how Nakamura might counter the F5—after, you’d hope, kicking the ever-loving sh*t out of Lesnar’s mercenary attitude.