10 best Japanese wrestlers who were wasted in the US

#1 Kazuchika Okada

Okada makes NJPW tons of money every year, and that's because he learned from TNA's mistakes.

Okada, like many other NJPW stars before him, left his homeland to hone his craft and to improve upon the fundamentals he already had. Though he was a decent-enough wrestler at the time, he lacked screen presence, and had very little, if anything, that helped him stand out. Thus, NJPW’s bookers thought it would be a good idea for him to spend some time in TNA, with whom they had a working relationship at the time.

Oh, how TNA messed up.

Instead of actually using Okada in a constructive way, he was shoehorned into playing something of a comic relief character (and was renamed ‘Okato’ at one point, in homage to the film ‘the Green Hornet’, which had the comedy sidekick with a similar name) working with Samoa Joe. The entire excursion lasted over a year, and Okada left TNA without having accomplished anything whatsoever.

NJPW were so upset over Okada’s handling that they severed their working relationship with TNA permanently, further cementing the gravity of their mistakes. Ironically, after Okada returned to NJPW, he transformed into the Rainmaker we all know and love today, and has already cemented himself as one of the greatest wrestlers in Japanese history.

The fact that TNA reps actually went to Okada to apologize to him recently over how he was mistreated further underscores how badly Japanese wrestlers tend to be treated in North America, even today.

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