10 Things That WWE (Almost) Always Messes Up

3. Japanese Wrestlers In WWE

For a long time, WWE mostly employed American and Canadian wrestlers, a few Latino and European wrestlers in the mix as well. For the longest time, WWE preferred to train their North American talent in their own style, which is very different from most other form of wrestling. So whenever WWE brought in Japanese wrestlers, there was concern that those Japanese athletes would be used in the wrong way. In decades past, Japanese wrestlers often followed the €˜evil foreigner€™ gimmick, used mainly by Mr. Fuji in WWE. While some Japanese stars were used well (Yokozuna doesn€™t count, since he was a Samoan), recent years we have seen Japanese superstars treated like comedy characters at best. The best examples would be the early incarnation of Kaientai, Funaki, TAKA Michinoku, Tajiri, and Yoshi Tatsu. In the first case, Kaientai were involved in some very ridiculous storylines, including the infamous segment in which Mr. Yamaguchi-san €˜allegedly€™ chopped off Val Venis€™ €˜manhood€™: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H21c_PgASHE TAKA Michinoku and Funaki, were basically a team of comic jobbers, despite their skill, especially TAKA, who was greatly underutilized, given his technical skill. Tajiri was introduced as then-WWF Commissioner William Regal€™s bumbling assistant, and was more or a less a joke character for his entire WWE career. Finally, Naofumi Yamamoto was given the name Yoshi Tatsu, a first name literally based off of the green dinosaur video game character. How can such a wrestler be taken seriously? This is why some fans are concerned about Hideo Itami€™s future in WWE. He€™s small by most wrestling standards (5€™9, 179 lbs.), and yet is known for his serious, stiff, kick-based fighting style. Those fans are worried that unless he gets over as a character that is as close to his work in Pro Wrestling NOAH, he€™ll become just another joke character.