Shinsuke Nakamura on Where Winning the Royal Rumble Ranks for His Career, Discusses Getting a Main Event Match at WrestleMania, and Why He Chose AJ Styles as His Opponent

– ESPN recently interviewed WWE Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura after his win at the 2018 Royal Rumble to earn a shot at AJ Styles for the WWE world title at WrestleMania. Below are some highlights.

Shinsuke Nakamura on his Royal Rumble win: “I believe this is the biggest thing to happen in my career so far.
That’s until WrestleMania this year which will be the biggest thing in my life.”

Nakamura on the support he got from the WWE Universe: “I really felt the people behind me. You had (John) Cena, Roman, Randy (Orton), the biggest stars in the WWE and I feel like I’m a new guy, but the WWE Universe really supported me.”

Nakamura on competing in a Rumble match: “This was my first time being in a match with these kinds of rules. I’ve never watched a Royal Rumble match. This was my first time. I wanted to enjoy it for the first time being in it.”

Nakamura on having to make an adjustment in his move to Smackdown: “When I came to NXT, I didn’t need to adjust. NXT fans are hardcore wrestling fans. I just had to wrestle and they reacted but when I got called up to SmackDown it was different. There’s just a difference in the live events. So last year I had to make an adjustment from NXT to SmackDown like others have done from NXT to Raw. It takes time to adjust but today I finally feel like I’m there. I feel at home. It’s hard to choose the words even if I was speaking Japanese. It’s hard to find the words.”

Nakamura on getting to main event WrestleMania and why he chose AJ Styles: “One of the reasons to come to the WWE was to wrestle at WrestleMania, but to main-event WrestleMania? Wow! I live for this. I have experience wrestling Brock (Lesnar) and AJ, but I really think the people and the audience around the world want to see AJ and me. That’s the match everyone wants to see.”