Preview of Tonight’s Dream Match Between Shinsuke Nakamura And John Cena

The word “dream match” is thrown around a lot in wrestling. Every indie wrestling card promotes one match or another as a such. A true dream match is one between two foes that until then only happened in the most ridiculous of “fantasy booking” threads on twitter and Reddit. Usually, the match is between two top stars from two different companies, genres, or eras. Sting vs. Undertaker is the ultimate dream match for some. In this modern time when global wrestling is accessible by anyone, dream matches often involve two big stars from different countries. Usually Japan and the United States. But as the stars of Japan find more success in the United States, we are seeing a lot of these “dreams” come true. That is how we landed on a dream match between two men who revolutionized and dominated wrestling in their respective countries: John Cena vs. Shinsuke Nakamura.

Title shot (and more) on the line

This isn’t just a match though. There are major implications. The winner of this bout goes on to face WWE Champion Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam. The conventional wisdom is that John Cena will win. Because well LOLCenaWins. Like it or not, John Cena is still the top drawing star in WWE. It isn’t even close, really. No one beats him in ratings, ticket sales, and merch. But, he’s getting old. He’s wrestling less and acting in movies more. While it is unfathomable to imagine John Cena not on the SummerSlam card, it is an eventuality WWE had to prepare for. They have to build up stars to replace him. Could that be Nakamura?