WWE superstar and former two-time NXT champion Shinsuke Nakamura recently spoke with Yahoo Japan about his upcoming showdown against the Great Muta at Pro Wrestling NOAH’s The New Year 2023 event, which will be one of the last matches of Muta (aka Keiji Mutoh)’s career. Highlights from the interview can be found below. (Translated from Japanese)
Says he still can’t believe the match was approved by WWE:
I can’t believe it. To be honest, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it will come true. It was almost impossible with the structure of the company called WWE until then. Vince (McMahon) resigned in July, and I received some advice from people in the company, ‘I might be able to go now.’ Even so, I thought it would be difficult, but I directly (talked with Triple H) and I was shocked when it actually came to a decision.
Indicates that the match happened because Vince McMahon was no longer in charge:
From Muta’s retirement announcement to the time the fight was decided, there was a big change in WWE. Vince (McMahon), who was the icon of everything, retired. In America, when the top management changes, everything changes. At that time, there was a feeling that various things would change from now on. One of the changes that happened to me was this. The fact that ‘no; was replaced with ‘yes’ was a boost.