10 Most Shocking 2023 Wrestler Transformations
3. Konosuke Takeshita
Konosuke Takeshita burst on the US scene last year and became a lot of people's new favourite wrestler.
His matches were explosions of meaty impact, stunning ring-breadth arcs and emotional weight. Fans were besotted with the man, who possessed a supernatural ability to play warp-speed hoss killer and sympathetic underdog seamlessly.
Sometimes, great ideas just don't click. Written down, his character arc was a great idea.
Impresses in superb in-ring outings, comes agonisingly close to scalping a major name. Each defeat stings that bit more. Meanwhile, Don Callis, fully aware that his meal ticket Kenny Omega is beginning to decline physically, corrupts Takeshita, a former decathlete, knowing that he is one shortcut away - the dark arts of cheating that Omega abandoned upon reconciling with Hangman Page - from becoming a megastar. Takeshita, seduced, turns heel at Double Or Nothing. He then pins Omega twice in the space of a week.
So why isn't Takeshita a star now? Why, if anything, is he less of a concern?
Barely booked to win on TV in an overcrowded landscape, he mainly just stands behind Callis as if he's Wardlow in 2019.
Take, while miscast, is actually a great heel - his native tongue promos are awesome - but he was essentially a mercenary with no agency nor stakes in the Omega Vs. Callis programme.