6 Winners And 4 Losers From The New Japan Cup

After taking the loss to Naito at Wrestle Kingdom 14, Okada needed to get his momentum back. Beating Taichi would never do the trick. What he needed was a solid string of wins, the first coming against Gedo, then Yuji Nagata, Bullet Club's best junior in Taiji Ishimori, NJPW's best junior in Hiromu Takahashi, before finally succumbing to an absolutely malignant EVIL.

In each match he's shown tremendous range, having to deal with Bullet Club shenanigans against Gedo and Ishimori, while having a more honorable bout with Nagata, and getting to experience everything that Hiromu Takahashi is capable of before having to deal with an incarnation of EVIL who will do whatever it takes to win.

While Okada winning back to back New Japan Cups seemed a little crazy from a booking standpoint, him still being in the final match shows how much he still means to the company. Through his gauntlet of empty-arena matches, he has proven that he is still indeed The Rainmaker.

While a loss does hurt, the past few years have shown a trend in the other finalist getting a shot at the title after the cup-winner, so Okada can still have that on his radar.

Even with his consistently heralded wrestling style, he's found ways to expand upon his own game, incorporating a new cerebral submission into his long arsenal of moves that can easily end a match. Few wrestlers improve over time the way Okada does. The future remains bright for NJPW's golden boy.