NJPW - Topic Ufficiale

[Heart Break Kid]

EVIL?

AJPW subito!

Ho visto che Naito si sta creando i LIJ con blackjack e squillo di lusso in Noah, magari va lá
Scambio alla pari EVIL - Kiyomiya

[GMPunk]

Scambio alla pari EVIL - Kiyomiya

[Sasori]

La presunta dichiarazione di Okada l'ho trovata anche io in rete.
Parla di problemi con il management, e vede improbabile un ritorno in Giappone.

Lo stesso Naito nel 2025 si era lamentato a mezzo stampa della politica sui rinnovi della New Japan.

Su Gabe Kidd sembra ci sia il pressing WWE.

[GMPunk]

Facebook penso dove ci sia più roba meno attendibile, molto volte inventano di tutto.

Mah, Dirt Sheet Radio ha effettivamente riportato la notizia anche sui suoi canali, quindi la pagina FB era attendibile.
Quali siano le frasi di Okada che DSR cita come fonte poi non saprei.

[Heart Break Kid]

Dato che si parlava dello scontento di Okada verso il management

Spoiler:

Notes from Kevin Kelly's podcast on Kazuchika Okada, from Dec 30 2025
From Strong Style Stories, Dec 30 2025

This is only my quick summary of what was said; I recommend listening to the podcast for Kevin's actual words if you want to criticize anything here. I've tried to rearrange some things as the podcast is sort of meandering.

With podcasts like this, it's hard to say when the speaker is talking from their own knowledge, when they've heard something on the grapevine, and when they're just speculating, but I've tried to keep these notes faithful to the recording. I don't claim that anything Kevin Kelly says is true, I'm just summarizing what he said.

Edit: Clarified the note about Naito

TL;DR: Okada didn't ever get along with the upper management and felt continually disrespected, and Harold Meij was disastrous for everyone's morale.

Intro, miscellaneous
Kevin highlights how Tanahashi would always get a good match out of anyone. Against unathletic opponents, Tanahashi would be very active and make the match into a good one, but would later tell his opponent how great they did and give them all the credit.

Kevin reflects that what he loved about working for New Japan was the art of it, highlighting that the camera work was so good that he felt he didn't have to scream and shout all the time because the pictures told the story. An example is Okada's wrist control; the camera would zoom in on the wrist and the audience could understand just by looking what was about to happen, building the anticipation.

Kevin explains that in most promotions, all the camera crew are aware of the match results and spots ahead of time, but in New Japan only the director is made aware. Aside from the instructions from the director, the camera crew cover the action like any live sport.

Kevin names El Phantasmo and Jay White as examples of talent who found this presented a challenge, as the camera crew would fail to capture them doing something important, and they couldn't communicate with the camera crew without being conspicuous. Kevin advised them to tell him, so that Kevin could communicate the key info to the audience. eg. "What you can't see over here, ladies and gentleman, is he's hidden something in his boot!"

Kevin says that any time he called for a replay, no one in production was actually listening, but he gradually got a sense for which spots they would choose to replay and would call it accordingly.

Main topic - Okada, frustration with management
The headline is that Okada had a tense relationship with company leadership over the course of his career. (He notes the distinction between the people in charge of creative decisions, and the high-level people in the office -- Okada particularly had an issue with Takaaki Kidani.) Kevin attributes Okada's departure to this.

Kevin relates a story that in the early 2000s, Takaaki Kidani was a "money mark" who paid a large sum to get to be in Steve Corino's corner one night at a Zero1 show. As we know, Kidani went on to found Bushiroad, which eventually bought New Japan.

Kevin tells the story of Kidani bringing Shibata back to New Japan in secret, and that everyone only found out when Shibata walked out to the ring. This ruffled a lot of feathers, and the booking hadn't accommodated it. Kidani was admonished for this and was apologetic.

However, Kidani continued to give unwelcome creative suggestions to Okada, who was at the time the company's new ace. An example was about what Okada should wear -- Kidani set up unsolicited appointments with designers, and insisted Okada should go. This rubbed Okada the wrong way, as Kidani was regarded as an outsider and businessman with no experience in wrestling.

Kevin explains that Sugabayashi's role was to be the liaison between the booking committee and the corporate higher-ups. Sugabayashi would receive creative ideas from the bookers, and give approval or denial based on the corporate feedback. He acknowledged this was a difficult position to be in, and that suits always want to be more involved in creative than they should be.

Kevin glosses over some years in the history of NJPW's leadership, summarizing them as pleasant, with corporate focusing on the business side of things.

Fast-forward to 2018, when Harold Meij becomes the president. He has good business acumen, so hopes are high, but once in the role he seems to continue the thread from Kidani of making frequent creative ideas for Okada, "buzzing around" him and making unwanted suggestions. The relationship between Okada and Meij gets so bad that Okada purportedly told Kevin Kelly "I don't want to bump for him anymore." This turn of phrase made Kevin understand Okada's perspective; he felt he was giving his health to the business but wasn't getting respect back.

Kevin seems to indicate it's around this time that Okada is first dealing with a back injury (in 2021, Meltzer reported that he was working through two slipped discs). I can't work out the chronology, but Kevin says that by 2021, Okada had become so crippled that he couldn't lace his own boots or bend down to get through the ring ropes. Kevin says this injury is why Okada was booked to lose in the first round of the New Japan Cup in 2021 and spent some time in multi-man tags. If I understood it right that Okada's back troubles began in 2018, then he was working with a bad back for almost 3 years.

Kevin and co-host Joel share scathing stories about Michael Craven (General Manager of International Development), who they describe as Meij's "minion" and was responsible for a lot of morale issues backstage. Kevin says Craven wanted to be an on-screen personality and repeatedly tried to join the English commentary team. Kevin alleges that on one occasion, an issue with the commentary recording (which Kevin blames on Craven's ineptitude) meant that they had to stay behind and re-record. Craven tried to use the opportunity to angle his way into recording the commentary himself, which caused Kevin to explode and cuss him out. They never spoke again after that. Kevin seems to get fired up just thinking about Meij and Craven:

"These are the people that are annoying Okada. I'm the lowest man on the totem pole -- I'm just the English commentator -- and I hated these people with a deep purple passion."

Kevin points out that it was Michael Craven's idea to bring on Lanny Poffo as an announcer.

Meij had tried to find a new TV partner, souring the relationship with TV Asahi (who are part owners of NJPW) to the point that they were threatening to cut ties. Kevin suggests that Meij had over-hyped himself as a global businessman to Kidani, and that pursuing another TV partnership showed an ignorance to Japanese business culture, where loyalty is very important. He also points out that, unlike in other markets, there aren't that many TV networks in Japan to be bargaining with in the first place. NJPW's relationship with TV Asahi was previously secure and valuable, and if they lost the deal, they probably wouldn't be able to get one anywhere else, and would've have any TV at all. Kevin believes Kidani stood by Meij's unwise decisions because it was he who selected Meij as president. On one occasion, a meeting with TV Asahi representatives ended when Kidani exploded at them and ordered them to leave. The TV Asahi situation was one of the factors that led to Meij being dismissed, an event that was embarrassing for Kidani.

Kevin recounts that on the day that Meij was fired, he, Gedo, and Bad Luck Fale danced together in the locker room (Fale having had to deal with Craven for Australia/NZ shows). Joel recalls Kevin sending him a text, "Just danced with Gedo", and knew without even asking that Meij must have been fired.

Kevin characterizes Okada as very kind and generous off-screen, telling a story about how Okada gave Kevin and Jeff Cobb a lift when he happened to be driving past one day. He says that Okada would always pick up the check at a restaurant -- even if they weren't dining together, if Okada saw Kevin at a restaurant, he would slyly pay the bill for his table. The co-host Joel tells a story about Strong Style Evolved UK in 2018, where Okada was spotted by fans after the show at his hotel. He graciously agreed to meet everyone and do autograph signings, but explained to them he wouldn't take any photos, as he knew the fans in attendance at the show earlier had paid money for photos with him, and felt it was unfair to them.

They summarize their perspective that Okada didn't leave NJPW because of money (noting that NJPW compensated him well) but because NJPW didn't look after him or show him respect, and Okada simply couldn't stand the upper management. Kevin says the fact that Tony Khan gives the talent a lot of creative freedom must have been appealing to Okada after his experience in NJPW, and speculates that was a reason he chose AEW over WWE. Okada was resolute that he would leave NJPW, so the decision was never between NJPW and the other companies.

Kevin suggests that it's due to the terrible relationship between Okada and NJPW that Okada would not help the company by putting over anyone on his way out.

Contrasting Okada's departure with Naito's: Kevin speculates that NJPW didn't want Naito in a top spot anymore because of his declining health, not only his body but his mind, eg. Naito was struggling to remember matches. Kevin talks about 40yo+ wrestlers becoming "New Japan dads", having their pay reduced as they move away from the spotlight, and that it's a common trajectory for older wrestlers to wind down and retire quietly without fanfare when their body cannot continue, giving Tenzan as an example. He says this possibly to imply this would've been the path for Naito if he had stayed. Kevin describes Naito's departure as "a business decision".

Kevin claims that Wrestle Kingdom was sold out before Okada was announced to be in the match, but that NJPW gave credit to Okada to sway his ego.

They note how much Okada respects Tanahashi for him to return to NJPW for his retirement match, as the relationship between Okada and NJPW remains terrible. Okada put aside his problems with the management to be there for Tanahashi.

Kevin hints that Okada and Tanahashi haven't always gotten along, and that they had a professional rivalry that caused tension at times, but that's fairly typical in wrestling.

Kevin is optimistic about Tanahashi being the president, as Kidani will not be able to influence him.

"Tanahashi is so magnificent, he's the type of guy that would take a bad idea that you have, not tell you it's a bad idea, put you over for suggesting an idea, and somehow make you feel good for not using it."

[Marco Frediani]

C'era pure il tipo che ha fatto incazzare di brutto Kota Ibushi qualche anno fa e Naito che ha detto che fino all'ultimo non gli hanno proposto il rinnovo.

[GMPunk]

Dato che si parlava dello scontento di Okada verso il management

Spoiler:

Molto interessante.
I commenti su Okada vanno a corroborare in toto quanto riportato anche da DSR.
Confermo anche la parte sulla schiena di Okada, perché ricordo che si parlava del suo infortunio all'epoca ed era spesso menzionato anche al commento e portato anche nei match. Inoltre, le tempistiche combaciano con il momento in cui ha iniziato gradualmente a tirare i remi in barca come performer e a rallentare i ritmi degli incontri.

High hopes for Tana as president, mi ha sempre dato le vibes di bella persona.

Curioso anche il discorso che ha fatto sulle telecamere e la regia, non la sapevo.

[Smoker]

[The Ripper]

Tana

Intanto Bishamon tornati campioni NEVER trios oggi con Oleg Boltin.

Diciottesimo titolo in NJPW per Goto e ottavo per Yoshi.

Gireranno un po sti titoli quest anno credo.

[Heart Break Kid]

Zane Jay ha turnato heel (con una sediata che diobò ) e si é unito a Newman
Immagino che salti l'excursion e rimanga in Giappone come Fujita

Assurdo l'attire di Umino, sembrava avesse un pannolone

[Darth_Dario]

Visti gli ultimi due match dello show del 19/01.

-Grossa sorpresa il match per i titoli Never, soprattutto dopo la cagata atomica del Tokyo Dome: azione frenetica e sensata per 20 minuti, con tutti che si fanno il mazzo e viaggiano a duemila. Parte del leone lasciata a Boltin, che a me ovviamente fomenta.

-Main Event Tag match più incazzoso dell'anno. La formula è semplice ma ovviamente funziona, con i vecchi che gonfiano con disprezzo i giovani, forse perché gli hanno rubato i pannoloni. Umino l'ho sentito tifato per la prima volta in 2 anni, quindi perlomeno 'sto tag sta funzionando. Ho un po' sofferto la lunghezza ma meno di altre volte. il pubblico comunque si è bevuto tutto e a una certa era un rito di passaggio che forse serviva. Uemura e Umino hanno preso una scarica di botte notevole, decisamente una battaglia.

Chi cazzo l'avrebbe mai detto comunque che sarebbero stati capaci di tirare fuori roba così interessante dalle loro divisioni Tag, onore a loro.

[Darth_Dario]

Visto pure DOUKI/Desperado. La solita merda della Casa. A questo punto è colpa mia che ogni volta mi aspetto qualcosa di diverso, tocca mettersi l'anima in pace e aspettare che DOUKI molli 'sto titolo. Che palle, che peccato.

[Heart Break Kid]

Molto dipenderà da come viene fuori il main event ma card di New Beginning in Osaka bella carica

Spoiler:

Potrebbe essere l'ultimo match di Finlay?(e di Gabe?)
C'è anche un Goto vs Oiwa il 2 Febbraio potenzialmente interessante

[Darth_Dario]

Ho letto in giro di Takahashi e EVIL in procinto di uscita, con quest'ultimo addirittura in orbita WWE.

Mah. Sarebbero entrambe perdite pesanti per motivi diversi. EVIL va in pensione, Takahashi non saprei veramente. Che deficienti.

[Marco Frediani]

Hiromu magari si è giustamente rotto il cazzo di pascolare nel nulla, tanto non lo mandavano su di categoria e con Naito uscito magari lo segue.
Perdita di peso.