{"id":9806,"date":"2017-11-21T22:53:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T03:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=9806"},"modified":"2017-11-21T22:53:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T03:53:07","slug":"breaking-hideo-itami-going-205-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2017\/11\/21\/breaking-hideo-itami-going-205-live\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Hideo Itami Going To 205 Live"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On tonight&#8217;s edition of <em><strong>205 Live<\/strong><\/em>, a graphic came across the screen advertising the impending arrival of NXT Superstar <strong>Hideo Itami<\/strong> to <em><strong>Raw<\/strong><\/em>&#8216;s Cruiserweight Division.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Are. You. READY?! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HideoItami?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@HideoItami<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/205Live?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#205Live<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0J5v6wZMAQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/0J5v6wZMAQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE (@WWE) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE\/status\/933173968483229696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 22, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9809\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9809\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9809\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/11\/kenta-e1511322413976.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"391\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9809\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: NOAH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hideo Itami has been an question mark in the WWE Universe, sadly due almost entirely from injury. But in Japan, under the name <strong>KENTA<\/strong>, he was an absolute legend. Arguably one of the biggest homegrown stars from <strong>Pro Wrestling NOAH<\/strong>, Itami wrestled with them for 14 years prior to joining NXT in 2014 as one of the top international signings the WWE had made in the past decade. As KENTA in NOAH, he was GHC Heavyweight Champion, 3x GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion and 2x GHC Tag Team Champion. He got his North American exposure through a series of high profile runs in <strong>Ring of Honor<\/strong> from 2005 to 2009, facing the likes of <strong>Low Ki, Bryan Danielson<\/strong> (Daniel Bryan), <strong>Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Chris Hero<\/strong> (Kassius Ohno) and <strong>Tyler Black<\/strong> (Seth Rollins).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bryan Danielson vs Kenta (NOAH) 12\/2\/06\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hCSn5QJ9-_U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But his first NXT run stopped before it really truly started &#8211; several months after debuting, alongside <strong>Finn Balor<\/strong> in late 2014 &#8211; he was injured in May of 2015 and was shelved for over a year with a serious shoulder injury, that encountered complications in early 2016. He returned to the ring in June of 2016. Just as he was getting his stride back, he was the victim of a botched powerbomb from <strong>Riddick Moss<\/strong> and was injured once again, spending another seven months on the injured reserve list. He returned this spring and had short feuds with NXT Champion <strong>Bobby Roode<\/strong>, his old ROH rival <strong>Kassius Ohno<\/strong> and <strong>Aleister Black<\/strong> before disappearing off television once again.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9811\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9811\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9811\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/11\/HideoItami-e1511322522682.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"366\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9811\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He&#8217;s managed to remain healthy and his switch to a heel demanding respect allowed Itami to return to more of his aggressive style from Pro Wrestling NOAH. It will be interesting to see how much of that he retains, but the prospects of him facing the likes of <strong>Cedric Alexander, Rich Swann, Mustafa Ali<\/strong>, or even the rumoured returning <strong>Neville<\/strong> good help to continue to elevate <em>205 Live<\/em> and <em>Raw<\/em>&#8216;s Cruiserweight Division. Hideo Itami becomes the 6th NXT call up this week, after the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2017\/11\/20\/paige-returns-new-faction\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Raw<\/em> debuts for <strong>Mandy Rose<\/strong> and <strong>Sonya Deville<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2017\/11\/21\/nxt-invasion-smackdown-live\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>Smackdown Live<\/strong><\/em> debuts for <strong>Ruby Riot, Liv Morgan<\/strong> and <strong>Sarah Logan<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On tonight&#8217;s edition of 205 Live, a graphic came across the screen advertising the impending arrival of NXT Superstar Hideo Itami to Raw&#8216;s Cruiserweight Division. Are. You. READY?! @HideoItami #205Live pic.twitter.com\/0J5v6wZMAQ &mdash; WWE (@WWE) November 22, 2017 Hideo Itami has been an question mark in the WWE Universe, sadly due almost entirely from injury. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":9808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[316,2,25,3],"tags":[299,281,227,51],"class_list":["post-9806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-205live","category-featured","category-raw","category-wwe-universe","tag-205-live","tag-cruiserweight-division","tag-hideo-itami","tag-raw"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}