I pulled all 4 tires out into the sun to inspect them again, and I was able to verify that spot is the same spot I saw with the shipping damage. I guess it looked bigger in the bright sun.
For fun, I had a 2nd old nitto in storage, I figured I would cut a chunk.out using aviation snips. Ha. That was practically impossible. I tried slicing a piece with a boxcutter. Ha part 2. Finally after much sawing and also some drilling I was able to expose a cross section of sidewall. 10mm thick with a dual.layer of wire belts/cross section.
I'm still deciding what to do but i thought i would share this experiment...