A bombshell announcement was made Thursday night as it was confirmed that Kazuchika Okada is leaving New Japan Pro Wrestling when his contract expires.
The departure
AEW and WWE have long had interest in the top star, and now it looks like he will be landing in one of the promotions. His departure will happen when his contract expires on January 31.
As previously reported, WWE felt that they have more of a chance at signing him than they did in the past, as the company has been trying to get him to sign with them for years.
Pay structure
During the opening minutes of the Bryan and Vinny Show podcast on F4WOnline.com, Bryan Alvarez discussed Okada’s departure.
“He’d been thinking about leaving once, and then there was a meeting with New Japan, and he wasn’t thinking about leaving anymore. And it wasn’t because he was offered a lot of money. I don’t know exactly what he was making but people today were like ‘this is the most underpaid, greatest wrestler of all time ever.’ So whatever he was making, if you compare it to what the top stars are making in America today, he’s grossly underpaid in New Japan. He’s done a lot of shows in AEW and don’t think he doesn’t know what they’re making there. They’re making a lot of money.”
Alvarez brought up how Okada’s wife is a famous actress but pointed out that she only does voiceover work, so she could do that anywhere and doesn’t need to live in Japan.
“Now, Tony Khan did a tweet today, and he talked about how it’s going to be an amazing 2024, and it’s certainly believed that AEW is the front-runner for Okada, that he will likely end up in AEW, but I can tell you he’s going to be negotiating with many different people. So, I would not say it’s a lock that he’s going to AEW. I would say it’s very likely he’s going to AEW, but it’s not like WWE ain’t throwing a lot of money around, and it’s not like WWE ain’t got interest in Okada. Trust me they have interest to the point that you think [Shinsuke] Nakamura kept saying he was going to bring chaos to WWE, things like that are not a coincidence. It’s like when he did that GTS for a few weeks, that was right around the time they [WWE] were negotiating with CM Punk, then everything with Punk fell through, and he stopped doing the GTS. Then negotiations started up again, and CM Punk returned at Survivor Series. It is no coincidence that Nakamura has talked about chaos, and there is a chance that he [Okada] would end up in WWE, but it seems very likely that he’s going to AEW. That’s a big story, let me tell you.”
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