Likely Reason For Kazuchika Okada’s NJPW Exit

With Kazuchika Okada achieving numerous milestones in NJPW, speculation arose about his future with the promotion once his contract expired. Now it appears that the likely reason for Okada leaving NJPW has been revealed.

As previously reported, Kazuchika Okada is set to become a free agent at the end of January this year. The promotion would officially announce that kazuchika Okada will be parting ways with the company after this month.

Bryan Alvarez discussed Kazuchika Okada’s potential departure from NJPW on the Bryan and Vinny Show podcast. While Okada has been linked to AEW due to Tony Khan’s tweet and his exposure to AEW shows, negotiations with multiple parties, including WWE, are expected. He added that Okada was grossly underpaid in NJPW, believing that to be the reason for his departure.

He’d been thinking about leaving once and then he had 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.”

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While AEW seems likely, it’s not a certainty, and WWE’s interest adds another dimension to the decision-making process according to Bryan Alvarez.

Tony Khan did a Tweet today and he talked about how it’s going to be an amazing year for AEW in 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, but 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 [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 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 [Okada] would end up in WWE but it seems very likely that he’s going to AEW.”

WWE has improved its chances of bagging Kazuchika Okada as well. Only time will tell whether The Rainmaker will make his way to WWE or AEW, as he will certainly be the hottest free agent on the market.

What do you think of this story about Kazuchika Okada? Do you want him to go to WWE? Sound off in the comments section below!