What exactly went wrong with the Styles/Nakamura feud from 2018?

[TheGodling]

Booking done by Road Dogg and Vince McMahon.

 

[2CT]

I remember this from when I was still watching.

Here's where they fukked up:

Infinite rematches

Really bad finishes

Even worse setup for the matches. Have a no DQ match end in a double countout to set up a regular ass match to pick a stop after establishing that neither guy can really beat the other. Have the regular ass match with a random finish set up a last man standing match.

Not pulling the trigger on the title switch. Shinsuke NEEDED the title win. Between the losses to AJ and the losses to Jinder the year before, Shinsuke was ruined as a legit contender for the WWE title, since all the losses were basically clean.

Basically any time you run the same title match 3-4 times in a row and the challenger can't win, you ruin that challenger. There's no compelling or believable reason for the crowd to get behind them if they get another shot.

So they basically made Shinsuke Japanese Dolph Zilga.

i can understand the WM loss but he DEFINITELY should've won the last man standing match

dude lost a lot of his luster among casual fans after that loss and like you said all those losses in a row

 

[Mike the Executioner]

You remember how at WrestleMania, right when the match started, Corey Graves said we were going to see a classic?

That's when I knew they fukked up. They had no angle to promote the match from other than it being a "dream match," despite the fact that it being for the WWE Championship meant that it promoted itself. Then the match was nowhere near the quality it should have been because the expectations were too high. Shinsuke turning heel was an interesting twist, and if he ended up winning the title along with the feud having some fire matches, everyone would forget about the way it started.

Then they started having matches with false finishes, which meant there were no decisive winners. Their best match was at Money in the Bank, because it was the only one they had with any sort of urgency. But it was also their last match so it didn't matter.

I remember my friend telling me that they killed the feud to the point where he didn't want to see it again. And he was right. The whole thing lasted less than three months, but the chemistry wasn't there and the booking failed both guys.

 

[YAYU]

Anyone else think Nak's heel turn has run it's course and it's time to turn him back?

yup! this heel theme w the japanese screaming is straight up TRASH!

we need that OG theme music ASAP!!!!

 

[Playaz Eyez]

They booked it as “THESE GUYS FACED EACH OTHER IN NEW JAPAN NOW WATCH THEM FACE EACH OTHER IN THE WWE”

 

[TNC]

Low blows.

You can’t have a blood fued and end matches with low blows

 

[prophecypro]

It was a programme built on dikk kicks

 

[JQ Legend]

Shoulda did like I did in 2k

Nakamura should have gotten the title at some point

Even if it was transitional

 

[Kidd Dibiase]

Same thing thats gonna ruin the mysterio/andrade feud minus the false finishes

 

[CM_Burns]

Because it was a smark buildup of "these guys are two great workers, watch them have a great match". There was no reason to care about the storyline between them two, if there even was one.

Those kind of builds only work when the guys do crazy sh1t in the ring, and the WWE style is more toned down than what they do in other companies, do that build doesnt really work for WWE like it might for ROH.

 

[krackdagawd]

These two got more in common than their play fighting fukk them and their struggle matches

 

[stro]

Mainline WWE doesn't generally have matches kick into higher gear for finishing stretches outside of the actual main events and only on big shows, and every one of those matches desperately needed it instead of flash finishes or bullshyt finishes.

 

[Dog Based Gremlin]

They booked it as “THESE GUYS FACED EACH OTHER IN NEW JAPAN NOW WATCH THEM FACE EACH OTHER IN THE WWE”

Close thread

 

[stro]

Because it was a smark buildup of "these guys are two great workers, watch them have a great match". There was no reason to care about the storyline between them two, if there even was one.

Those kind of builds only work when the guys do crazy sh1t in the ring, and the WWE style is more toned down than what they do in other companies, do that build doesnt really work for WWE like it might for ROH.

Ultimately that was the entire build to their NJ match as well.

 

[Larry]

Nakamura is a flop


Akira Tozawa more entertaining than him