10 Crucial Booking Steps Needed To Save Hideo Itami’s WWE NXT Career

9. Have Him 'Injure' Other NXT Wrestlers

Up until he was injured, Itami€™s popularity in NXT was based almost entirely on his success in NOAH and in places like ROH. He needs to click with the NXT audience of today, and a great way of doing that, is having him €˜hurt€™ his larger opponents to prove that big things do indeed come in small packages. The best way to present him as dangerous would be for him to €˜injure€™ other wrestlers. In other words, when NXT wrestlers need to leave temporarily, such as to recover from a real injury, they can write that person€™s brief exit as being caused by Itami. Imagine if a popular wrestler like Apollo Crews suddenly suffered an arm injury and would be out of action for three months. The creative team in NXT could have Itami attack Crews with vicious brutality, which would €˜explain€™ Crews€™s departure from NXT programming. By making Itami out to be this dangerous force on NXT, it would give him a much more prominent role as a wrestler, and he would be taken far more seriously by his opponents. During his matches, the commentators would hype his most dangerous moves with lines like, €˜that€™s the move that put Wrestler X on the shelf€™, and fans would have be more invested as a result.