10 Mistakes WWE Must Not Repeat In 2017
1. Shinsuke Nakamura's Titan Training
'Titan Training' is a Hulk Hogan-coined term, broadly defined as the WWE acclimatisation process. This is something Shinsuke Nakamura is undergoing - and it's going some way towards betraying the very core of the character.
When he debuted at NXT TakeOver: Dallas, he emerged as the star of WrestleMania Weekend because he was antithetical to the fading WWE norm. He brought with him the concept of Strong Style - a wrestling style heavily predicated on stiff strikes and a novel mode of psychology. Opposite Sami Zayn, he was nominally a babyface, but he cut off tests of strength with jarring, unsportsmanlike kicks to the gut.
Much like in his native Japan, the heel/babyface alignment was blurred. Nakamura wasn't some one-dimensional hero. He was a fighter.
That was until he commenced his rivalry with Samoa Joe throughout the remainder of the year. The act became reductive - basic, even. Injury angles following which he made heroic comebacks, matches predicated on the targeting of a single body part, tainted finishes - all of this added up to a familiar picture.
Nakamura was received as a megastar because he was something different. WWE's response has been to normalise him. If he was allowed to perform with the same freedom he was afforded in New Japan, the last two TakeOvers would not have been stolen from him.