10 HUGE Tests Wrestlers Passed
2. Kazuchika Okada Dethrones Hiroshi Tanahashi
This was major. This was the most audacious booking manoeuvre of the 21st century.
Hiroshi Tanahashi was the most dominant IWGP Heavyweight Champion ever, amassing a then-record of 11 successful defences. It was certainly something to market, and was arrived at for that specific reason, but it never felt oppressive nor transparent because he was the Ace. He was the handsome muscular rock star - the only man since December 31, 1989 to get the air guitar over - who drew fans into his masterpieces by perfecting the turmoil of the heat and mapping his comeback out of it. He popped people with strategy, where his lesser peers had to do it with a high spot.
Gedo perfected the art of long-term booking so brilliantly that he, as much as any failed push, ruined WWE for so many fans by setting the standard. He slowly replaced Tanahashi in his prime with Kazuchika Okada.
Slowly does not describe the first chapter of the story: at New Beginning 2012, Okada - a Young Lion wearing a bit slap, to be reductive but accurate - ended Tana's record reign in a development that just didn't happen. The returning repackaged star is usually elevated in defeat.
Okada triumphed because he was a prodigy with a preternatural ability to lay out an epic match. His concrete Tombstone set him apart as a despicable heel, but the shock was only administered with firm knowledge that he had the substance to follow it up.