{"id":33117,"date":"2016-10-06T20:40:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T01:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=33117"},"modified":"2016-10-06T20:44:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T01:44:44","slug":"amadis-take-presence-samoa-joe-shinsuke-nakamura-beginning-harm-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/10\/06\/amadis-take-presence-samoa-joe-shinsuke-nakamura-beginning-harm-good\/","title":{"rendered":"AMADI&#8217;S TAKE: The presence of Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura in NXT is beginning to do more harm than good"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3212645965\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><div id=\"m_8073873355087761534yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1475760937472_11806\">\n<p>Samoa Joe coming out to ruin Dan Matha\u2019s NXT debut made for a fun segment. Perhaps it\u2019s his resemblance to failed WWE experiment Nathan Jones, but the weeks of video packages hyping his arrival didn\u2019t do much for me. Apparently the Full Sail crowd felt similarly, because they popped for Joe\u2019s beat down of Matha and his threats to \u201cescalate things\u201d should he not be served up Shinsuke Nakamura or given the NXT Championship next week.<\/p>\n<p>It was a perfect next step for his storyline with Nakamura. Last week Joe laid waste to the Ealy brothers, this week the heavily-hyped Dan Matha. The storyline seems to be that the feud between Joe and Nakamura is a threat to the up and comers of NXT and the brand itself.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, that\u2019s a little too close to the truth.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s becoming increasingly more difficult to the shake the feeling that the presence of Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura on NXT television is starting to do more harm than good.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Bryan said it best in an interview with Michael Cole on WWE.com following Finn Balor\u2019s shoulder injury; he said that stars like Balor, Joe, and Nakamura should have been on the main roster a long time ago. That\u2019s really a no-brainer at this point. Having world class, superstar wrestlers in their mid-to-late 30s relegated to NXT is an obvious waste of their talents.<\/p>\n<p>Shinsuke Nakamura is a star, but why would anyone be excited to tune in to NXT to see him basically squash Wesley Blake. Samoa Joe is a star, but he\u2019s spent pretty much the last year feuding with Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura exclusively. You can only watch big time feuds on the small time platform for so long before it loses its appeal. At a point it stops being a treat to see major stars on the supposed \u201cdevelopmental brand\u201d and it start to come across more like they\u2019re being held hostage there.<\/p>\n<p>However, more than a waste of just those talents, having them in top spots in NXT hurts the feel of the entire show. We\u2019ve already seen guys like Tye Dillinger go from cold, to warm, to hot in NXT without ever really moving up the card because wrestlers such as\u00a0Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, and Shinsuke Nakamura have been bottlenecking the top of the male division for so long. Only now are we getting to see him progress into a program with Bobby Roode, who realistically should also be on the main roster sooner rather than later as well.<\/p>\n<p>NXT is often said, at least on NXT television, to be the \u201chottest brand in sports entertainment.\u201d It sure felt that way heading in to &#8220;NXT Takeover: Dallas&#8221; and it sure feels a lot less that way following each subsequent Takeover special. We\u2019re not on a journey with Shinsuke Nakamura or Samoa Joe the way we were with Sami Zayn or American Alpha. We know they\u2019re not the WWE\u2019s future, but rather its wasted present.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-3075697542\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><strong>CHECK OUT JASON AMADI&#8217;S MOST RECENT COLUMN AT OUR SISTER SITE, MMATORCH.COM:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mmatorch.com\/2016\/09\/30\/amadi-jose-aldo-issue-growing-problem-sports-legitimacy-just-reality-check-ufc-really\/\">AMADI: Is the Jose Aldo Issue a growing problem for the sport\u2019s legitimacy or just a reality check on what UFC is really about?<\/a><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><em>(Jason Amadi has been a columnist at MMATorch.com and makes his PWTorch.com premiere with this column. Follow him on Twitter @JasonAmadi.)<\/em><\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3083376752\"><div id=\"pwtor-403439758\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Samoa Joe coming out to ruin Dan Matha\u2019s NXT debut made for a fun segment. Perhaps it\u2019s his resemblance to failed WWE experiment Nathan Jones, but the weeks of video packages hyping his arrival didn\u2019t <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/10\/06\/amadis-take-presence-samoa-joe-shinsuke-nakamura-beginning-harm-good\/\" title=\"AMADI&#8217;S TAKE: The presence of Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura in NXT is beginning to do more harm than good\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,53],"tags":[3976,124,125,308,1620],"class_list":["post-33117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-opinion_stafftakes","tag-dan-matha","tag-nxt","tag-samoa-joe","tag-shinsuke-nakamura","tag-tye-dillinger"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JoeSamoaWK_3x2_600.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33117"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33123,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117\/revisions\/33123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}