10 TNA Rejects Doing Pretty Well For Themselves Elsewhere

by John Bills

1. Kazuchika Okada

Okada Streamers
NJPW

Do you remember Okada's run in TNA? Chances are you don't, and if you do then you probably would rather forget it. Okada was billed as Okato, and spent most of his time wrestling in directionless X-Division matches. Well, I say 'spent most of his time', I say that trying to actively forget the time spent as Samoa Joe's sidekick.

Yeah, TNA had Okada dress up as Kato from The Green Hornet and spy on D'Angelo Dinero. It was awful, frustrating, creatively bankrupt and did nothing for any of the three men involved. The story would act as the biggest nail in the coffin of the working relationship between TNA and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Okada left TNA in late 2011, returning full time to New Japan Pro Wrestling. By February 2012, he was the IWGP Heavyweight Champion. As we enter the final stretch of 2016 Okada is a three-time champ, as well as being a two-time winner of the G1 Climax. He is arguably the biggest professional wrestler in Japan today.

Yet TNA put him under a mask and made a joke out of him. It is no stretch to say that by the time 2020 comes around we'll be talking about SANADA as a multi-time IWGP Champion and G1 Climax winner too. TNA just didn't know what to do with Japanese talent.

Heck, it didn't know what to do with a lot of talent. Luckily for wrestling fans worldwide, other companies saw sense.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.