10 Most Shocking NJPW Upsets
3. Jay White Vs. Kazuchika Okada - Wrestle Kingdom 13
We'd been here before.
Gedo had aligned with the man in whom he saw something nobody else did, and that man, Jay White, found himself in the opposite corner of the ring from the man he had replaced: Kazuchika Okada. Narrative symmetry; the integrity of the rising star; the potential turmoil faced by the rumoured departure of the Elite: almost everything converged to raise White's arm in victory, and yet, Okada's entrance changed everything.
Having lost the IWGP Heavyweight Championship with which he had apotheosised, Okada in the previous months had descended into a sort of charming, balloon-throwing madness. This wasn't Okada but rather an unsettled, visually unrecognisable version of himself. On January 4, 2019, White was confronted with the Rainmaker proper, once more dressed in the iconic trunks that symbolised the apparent restoration of his dominance. But White, following an incredible performance of cunning and escapism, still overcame, defeating the company's new Ace in a powerhouse showing that contrasted perfectly with his tentative Tokyo Dome bow the year prior.
This was pure disruption; Gedo had protected Okada's Dome Ace aura by sacrificing NJPW's hottest star, Tetsuya Naito, on his Dome battleground in 2018.
White promised to change everything in the days that followed; one year later, through audacious booking and a prescient eye for talent, Gedo did precisely that.