News On Nakamura Status + Reasons For New HOF Stage

-There have been rumblings for a while that Japanese Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura might not remain with WWE when his deal expires. While the King of Strongstyle wowed fans in NXT, his career trajectory since his main roster call up has been nothing short of a disappointment.

Following his Rumble win, he went on to lose his championship match at WrestleMania. While he’s had a United States Championship reign, his main roster singles programs, outside of his feud with AJ Styles, have been underwhelming.

With Japanese wrestling promotions certainly willing to bring him home, and upstart new promotion All Elite Wrestling looming, Nakamura certainly has options, should he choose to explore them. But will he?

According to Wrestling Observer, Shinsuke Nakamura will be remaining with the company. This seems to indicate that a new deal is either a done deal, or a virtual certainty.

While Nakamura is currently tagging with Rusev, it would be nice to see him break free and get into a good singles program again. It would also be nice to see him work as a babyface again, considering how insanely over he was before. Then again, so was Rusev, so it will be interesting to see what-if anything-WWE does.

-Much has been said about the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame stage. WWE presented the event using the ring in the middle of the Barclays Center, a departure from the usual stage set up from years past.

The reason, per PWInsider, was logistical in nature. Specifically, because TakeOver was moved to Friday, WWE opted to have mercy on the crew and repurpose the ring for the Hall of Fame festivities.

Because of this, it meant one ring set up for the entirety of the run in Brooklyn. That covered TakeOver, the Hall of Fame evening and then RAW and SmackDown.

Unfortunately, the setup had some downsides. First, half the fans wound up staring at the backs of the inductees all night. More concerning, this set up provided an unstable fan with access to attack Bret Hart.

It would not be surprising if we did not see this setup return for 2020.