TNA's "OKato" becomes the man in Japan

[GrandSword]

24-year-old Kazuchika Okada won NJPW's IWGP title (the most prestiguous title in Japan right now), ending Hiroshi Tanahashi’s thirteen month title reign.

Okada spent the last two years in TNA (on Explosion mainly) and was Samoa Joe's terrible storyline Kato in his horrible feud with The Pope. And then in his second singles match back in New Japan he wins the belt!!!

First of all, was this guy really the one to end Tanahashi's reign?

and two.. if this guy really is that good, to just walk into the company and be the one to get the rub off beating their Ace... did TNA miss the boat on a great talent?

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

The puro audience and the american audience are very different. How many asians have EVER been huge stars in the US?

I can guarantee you that Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, and Kenta Kobashi would all not get over in front of a US crowd. The US crowds don't give a shit about stiffness and headdroppy stuff. They don't treat it like a sport (which doesn't necessarily make sense, I think fighting spirit spots are the phoniest thing in wrestling).

I LOVE Misawa and those guys, but they work the style they worked because of the audience they had. It doesn't translate. In fact, Mike Quackenbush, who knows more about wrestling than anyone on here, suggests that you shouldn't even think of Puro, Lucha, and AmPro as the same thing, but close cousins.

An analogy would be like this. Say you have a guy who is a great athlete, he has a choice to run track or play basketball. NBA teams don't target him as much. Instead, he goes on to win a gold medal in the olympics. Did the NBA teams miss the boat? Maybe, but just because a guy is a world class athlete doesn't mean he has the skillset to make a huge difference on the court.

Same thing here. A skillset that gets you over in Japan doesn't always translate to the US and vice-versa.