A few days ago, the wrestling internet made a classic big deal over the breaking revelation that the WWE’s Shinsuke Nakamura picked up NJPW-but working programs for-AEW Minoru Suzuki from the airport and hung out together. OMG the scandal, one of them is definitely jumping ship, etc, etc. Internet wrestling fans are special like that.
A few months ago, there was some buzz surrounding the free agency of Kazuchika Okada, as he was wrapping up his obligations in Japan, that seeing as how he didn’t re-sign with NJPW, it was a foregone conclusion that he was definitely coming to America, but the question really was, the WWE or AEW? I mean, if I were a betting man, I’d have put a sizeable amount on AEW, but the thought of him going to the WWE was plausible enough to where many began to analyze the sudden push of Nakamura into a program against Cody Rhodes, as evidence of the willingness of the WWE to give Japanese guys high profile opportunities.
Regardless, Okada went to AEW, and Nakamura’s push came to about as sudden of a stop as it had started, but after watching the main event to AEW’s super television show aptly titled Blood and Guts, where Okada, who was previously regarded to be basically NJPW’s John Cena over the last 15 years, was relegated to this glorified hardcore brawl, where the man was undoubtedly out of his element, and performed as such too.
The same Okada, who basically had some of the greatest wrestling matches not just in modern history, but arguably of all-time, was hanging around inside double steel cages, trying to avoid being on camera as much as possible. All around him were thumbtacks, steel chairs, ladders, and one of his most notable moments in the match was when Swerve Strickland put a staple in his middle finger, when he was merely just trying to flip the bird because he’s an evil heel and that’s what bad guys do.
Eventually, he would be “taken out” during a commercial break that didn’t even get JR’s Restaurant Quality Picture-in-Picture™ and was hiding for the remaining minutes of the shitshow, and it goes without saying that there’s no single part of me that doesn’t feel that AEW is wasting and squandering the talents of a guy like Kazuchika Okada (and Mercedes Mone but that’s a different story).
I like to imagine a scenario where after a debacle like this one, one random evening, Okada calls up Nakamura, assuming that they’re friends because they’re both Japanese, both professional wrestlers, and have a positive relationship built when they were both in NJPW.
Okada asks Shinsuke if he saw his match at Blood and Guts, and of course Nakamura didn’t, because he’s on the road and didn’t have a chance to see it. Okada goes into mansplain mode about how intense it was, how into the marky AEW crowd was, and all the cool shit they got to do in the ring. Meanwhile, Nakamura responds with an unimpressed mmhmm, while he describes how he had to lose to Logan Paul at a house show in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in the second match of the night, but at least he didn’t have to land on any thumbtacks or have his finger staple gunned.
They proceed to talk about their respective lives in their respective promotions, where they both wax poetic about how they were the literal kings of NJPW, and how they’re basically organizational filler in America. But Okada gets defensive and talks about how he’s a champion, Nakamura rebuts that AEW/ROH has like 53 active championship belts. Okada talks about how he’s featured on television as opposed to Nakamura, but Shinsuke says he’d rather not be on television than be portrayed like a clown when he was a god in Japan just four months ago.
And then Nakamura then goes on the offensive to talk about how even though he’s an afterthought right now, he still works a soft schedule, gets to travel internationally on the WWE’s dime, and gets to experience a lot of the world, all while not having to be put in uncomfortable clusterfucks and wrestle on thumbtacks and staples.
Okada responds with the likely reality that he makes way more money than Nakamura does, but then the older and wiser Shinsuke responds that they’ve both already made big fortunes in wrestling already, at what point does all these extra dollars even matter?
And with the Okada rage hangs up the phone, while Shinsuke Nakamura scoffs and laughs at the dead air suddenly at his ear.
This is the kind of bullshit that goes on through my head these days when I’m not in dad-mode, and this is probably why I can’t even begin to start making my life’s fortune on some stupendous side hustle that would undoubtedly take off to the moon if I could just get off my ass and stop brogging about professional wrestling fan fiction.
