What we learned from WWE this week: 15th May, 2017

#5 Dolph and Shinsuke could be on for a classic

This could be awesome

Apart from the fact that a better first opponent could have been found for Shinsuke Nakamura, the feud between him and Dolph Ziggler so far has been great. The crucial thing was not having either of them wrestle at all in the build up. You don’t want to give away Nakamura’s first main roster bout for free, and you want to make watching him feel like a big deal. Not having Dolph in the ring has in a way worked too, as we can better build up a mental picture of what this match is going to look and feel like.

On paper, this should be an instant classic. It is a genuine clash of styles, with Nakamura’s strong style taking on the athleticism of Ziggler. We all know how good of a ‘seller’ Dolph can be as well, which I suspect was part of the reason for throwing him at Nakamura for his debut.

Dolph needs to dig down deep and find some of that in-ring magic that has been slightly absent in recent years. He is more than capable of telling a great story just with his in-ring work, and this match needs to tell a believable and captivating story.

While this match should, by no means, be a squash match, I think the tale they most want to tell on Sunday should be that Nakamura is still very much an enigma that the rest of the roster aren’t quite ready for.

I would have Nakamura on the offensive for at least 70% of this match, getting into the mind of Dolph and working a style that Ziggler just can’t respond to. There’s no point in having all this build, calling him the ‘Artist’ and then just having a traditional 50/50 match where everything just feels the same as the rest of the card.

It’s up to WWE to make this work, but so far they’ve been doing a fine job.