Shinsuke Nakamura Says He’s Not Retiring, Wants To Win The World Heavyweight Championship In WWE

When Shinsuke Nakamura signed with WWE in 2016, he was one of the most popular wrestlers in NXT. The company also treated him well, as Nakamura won the NXT Championship on two occasions. He joined the main roster after WrestleMania 33 and became a big name on the SmackDown brand.

Shinsuke Nakamura won the Men’s Royal Rumble match in 2018 and immediately challenged AJ Styles for the WWE Championship. This was a dream match for everyone. It seemed almost certain that WWE would put the World Title on Shinsuke, as the fans were also rooting for it. But at the Show of Shows, Nakamura lost the match and then turned heel.

This was his first heel turn in WWE, but the company completely bombed it with how they booked him afterward. Nakamura failed to win the title on multiple occasions, and his rivalry with Styles turned stale due to repetitive finishes.

Nakamura is still a fan favorite in WWE, and while he’s had his fair share of big moments in recent years, nothing can top his early main roster run. The wrestler is now 45 years old, and fans have been wondering if he’s going to retire. Earlier this year, there were even rumors that Shinsuke Nakamura was leaving WWE following his US Title loss to LA Knight in March, but those turned out to be false.

Shinsuke Nakamura Talks About His Wrestling Retirement And Championship Goal In WWE

Lee Dyer from Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking to Tokyo Sports recently, Shinsuke Nakamura revealed that he’s not retiring anytime soon. He’s accomplished a lot in his career, but he still has his eyes set on the World Heavyweight Championship. It’s a title he’s never won in WWE, and also one that would give him Grand Slam status.

He wants to become an inspiration for Japanese wrestlers and prove that they can make it to the top. He said:

“Luckily, I don’t have many injuries, so it’s not like I’m retiring anytime soon. But nothing lasts forever. If you told me I’d still be wrestling in ten years, I’d have to question that. Five years? Maybe. No one knows what tomorrow brings, so I just have to do what I can now.

That’s what keeps me going—the belief that I can still do it. For me, it’s the World Heavyweight Championship. That’s what I’m after. When you think about the things Japanese wrestlers, especially men, haven’t yet broken through on in America, that’s it. I don’t know if it’ll serve as proof of anything, but sometimes I wonder—if I can’t do it, what happens then? I just want to leave behind a path, a sense of hope, for the next generation of Japanese and Asian wrestlers.” (H/T Sportskeeda)

It’s similar to what stars like Rey Mysterio and CM Punk have done in the past. Before their success, wrestling was dominated by larger-than-life wrestlers who always strived to look bigger than anyone else.

But once these stars were able to grow organically, other not-so-beefy wrestlers followed in their footsteps and made it big themselves.

Do you want to see Shinsuke Nakamura win a World Title in the future?