Nakamura with a surprising story.
In 2006 on January 4th, New Japan Pro Wrestling presented 'Toukon Shidou Chapter 1' which was Wrestle Kingdom before it was named Wrestle Kingdom. The main event of that show saw an up and coming Shinsuke Nakamura challenge Brock Lesnar for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The match went shortly over eight minutes and Lesnar defeated Nakamura to retain the title.
After losing to Brock Lesnar, Shinsuke was set to go on excursion in the United States but that did not happen due to legal issues between WWE and Brock Lesnar and what NJPW claimed were "visa issues" which culminated in Lesnar being stripped of the IWGP Heavyweight Title.
Reddit user 'nivvd' shared a few excerpts from Shinsuke Nakamura's book, 'King Of Strong Style: 1980-2014' and the portion that was shared featured comments from Nakamura as he discussed his experience working with Lesnar at the Tokyo Dome and it was not a pleasant one for the current WWE United States Champion as he shared that he cried after the match.
“Part of that was luck. But that match was seriously rough. First, Lesnar was saying all this stuff about how he respected New Japan, but it felt to me like that was just for show, that he didn't really respect the promotion. Like, somewhere, he was looking down on Japanese people. I lost the match, and that was the first time I cried at pro wrestling after a match." Nakamura continued, "It was the main event at Tokyo Dome. This was a pretty hallowed stage, and I knew I hadn't fought the way I imagined I would. And there was, like, this temperature difference between me and Lesnar. I didn’t get the sense he had any love for pro wrestling. It felt like he was just doing his job.”
Nakamura then went on to write about how Lesnar was stripped of the IWGP Heavyweight Title but never actually returned the physical title. Shinsuke noted that everything he feared was going to happen, ended up happening.
“I felt like this was too much; he was seriously scoffing at us. Lesnar won the championship and took the belt home, I told Simon if the company didn't get its shit in order, that belt was definitely going to get nicked. I didn't honestly believe that when we fought. But it ended up just like I feared. He has the physical stuff, plus a straightforward strength and a certain amount of flexibility, so there was a bit of the monster to him. But I didn't like his personality, you know? He might have made a real mark in UFC, but he didn't even seem to notice the audience booing. I was like, 'Oh, this guy's a heel to the core.'" Nakamura noted.
Recently on WWE TV, Shinsuke Nakamura has established an odd understanding with Randy Orton. To read more on that, head over to Fightful's coverage of this past Tuesday's edition of SmackDown Live.
