[XL]

Originally Posted by Sepholio I'll agree that Kenta was pretty irrelevant, but I dunno what you've been watching if you think Shinsuke is relevant. His IC title reign was the worst ever. They didn't even have him on PPVs and he defended it like, what, 3 times maybe on TV? It was a joke. And until Friday night when he was Hit Rows mystery partner he had spent the last few months in NXT.

Bad take.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect Pretty predictable. Nakamura was a fine IC Champion, but he’s held the belt for ages and has mainly been teaming with Boogs. I can see them being the team that eventually unseats The Usos, probably at Mania. I’m not even sure Zayn holds the belt for that long. I can see Knoxville screwing him out of it. I can see Cesaro getting a little run with it, maybe defending it against Sheamus at Mania.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect I didn’t realize we were pretending to be marks? Nakamura has been protected really well by the company.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect He’s knocked off challengers in contenders matches and tag team matches. He also defeated Damian Priest in a champion vs. champion match at Survivor Series (albeit by DQ). Most of his defenses as champion happen on house shows. He successfully defended the title 12 times. Conversely, in Japan Nakamura’s longest IC Title reign was 313 days and it shared his most defenses in a single reign with 8. He once held the belt for 224 days and defended it 3 times.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect Lol, this reminds me of when people used to bitch about how shit Lesnar was as champion because he was never around and never defended the belt. He was actually defending it more frequently than Okada was as IWGP Champion in Japan, which is of course a darling doing darling things in a darling promotion. Perspective is important. Maybe the average fan sees Nakamura being featured pretty constantly on television and is counting the times he doesn’t defend the belt and thinking “This is damn bullshit!” before throwing their beer can at the TV and swearing off wrestling forever. But maybe some are looking at him being presented in a good light (most of the time anyway) and are getting the impression that he must be a pretty good wrestler.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect The secondary belts have been treated way better than they have been in the past. That’s exactly my point. Secondary champions like Nakamura, Priest, Lashley, Rollins, Zayn and Styles have been presented as people you should care about. How many times they defend their belts is trivia for hardcore nerds. Nakamura won the IC Title when he was King Nakamura — the very concept of which meant he beat the King of the Ring for their crown. Is it a silly gimmick? Yes. But he has been featured and made to look good while being champion. The internet is going to whinge about how nothing matters anymore like Nakamura going through Corbin, Moss, Mahal and Holland every week is some magic recipe to make people care. It’s people on the internet thinking their preference is what other people want to see.