8 Best Options For Dethroning Samoa Joe As NXT Champion

2. Hideo Itami

NXT Title
WWE.com

Is Hideo Itami ever going to return from injury? It really feels as though the man has been away for a lifetime. A shoulder injury kept him out of a #1 Contender match at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable in May 2015, and that was the last we got of him. He may have been the man to dethrone Kevin Owens at the WWE Beast in the East show last summer, but that never came to pass.

In the time he has been away, stars have come and stars have gone. Itami's presence and spotlight has dwindled to not too much, meaning that when (if?) he does eventually return it'll be touch and go whether he is embraced as a returning hero or with mild indifference.

A man of Itami's ability is going to succeed either way, and if the reaction is closer to the former than the latter he could very well be the man to take the NXT Championship away from Samoa Joe. What a return it could yet be.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.