Kazuchika Okada

Kazuchika Okada
Okada in March 2024
Born (1987-11-08) November 8, 1987 (age 37)
Anjō, Aichi, Japan
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 2019)​
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Kazuchika Okada
Okada
Okato
Dragon George[1]
Billed height1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)[2][3]
Billed weight107 kg (236 lb)[2][4]
Billed fromTokyo, Japan[5]
Trained byÚltimo Dragón[6]
DebutAugust 29, 2004

Kazuchika Okada (岡田 和睦, Okada Kazuchika, ring name: オカダ・カズチカ) (born November 8, 1987) is a Japanese professional wrestler. As of March 2024, he is signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he is a member of The Elite stable and is the current AEW Continental Champion in his first reign. He is best known for his 18-year tenure in New Japan Pro-Wrestling where he was a five-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, with his fourth reign being the longest in the company's history at 720 days. He also holds the record for most successful title defenses with 12. After the title was unified into the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, Okada went on to hold the new championship a record two times.

Initially trained by Último Dragón and making his debut in August 2004, Okada spent his first years in professional wrestling working in Mexico, before returning to Japan and making NJPW his home promotion in mid-2007. Originally working as a junior heavyweight, Okada graduated to the heavyweight division in April 2008, with limited success. In February 2010, NJPW sent Okada on a learning excursion to American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he spent the next twenty months, mainly performing on the promotion's secondary television program, Xplosion. From January to March 2011, he performed under the name Okato on TNA's primary television program, Impact!, as Samoa Joe's sidekick in his rivalry with D'Angelo Dinero.

Okada's run with TNA ended in October 2011 and he returned to NJPW in January 2012, repackaged as "Rainmaker" (レインメーカー, Reinmēkā), complete with a new look and a villainous persona. Just a month later, Okada defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win NJPW's top title, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which he would hold for four months before losing it back to Tanahashi. The following August, Okada won NJPW's premier tournament, the G1 Climax. At the end of the year, the Tokyo Sports magazine named Okada the 2012 MVP in all of Japanese professional wrestling. The following year, Okada first won the New Japan Cup in March and then regained the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Tanahashi in April. After a thirteen-month reign, Okada lost the title in May 2014. Three months later, he won his second G1 Climax. Okada went on to win his third G1 Climax in 2021 and his fourth in 2022, which makes him the wrestler with the second-most wins in the tournament with four, just behind Masahiro Chono who has five. Okada has since won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship three more times and headlined NJPW's biggest annual event—Wrestle Kingdom—eight times (7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17). Okada left NJPW in March 2024 and signed with AEW shortly thereafter.

Widely considered as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time,[7] he became the first Japanese wrestler to top Pro Wrestling Illustrated's list of the top 500 wrestlers in the world in 2017. Readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter named him as the most outstanding wrestler of the 2010s in March 2020.[8] Okada's match with Kenny Omega at Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-jo Hall in June 2018 is regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestling matches of all time, and received a rating of seven stars by journalist Dave Meltzer, the highest rating Meltzer has ever awarded a wrestling match. Okada was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 2021 (his first year of eligibility).

  1. ^ "2019.01.21 CMLL FANTASTICA MANIA 2019 Night8 | NEW JAPAN PRO-WRESTLING".
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference NJPW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Kazuchika Okada". Puroresu Central. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
  4. ^ 新エース24歳オカダＩＷＧＰ挑戦／新日本. Nikkan Sports (in Japanese). 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  5. ^ "Okada". Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
  6. ^ 『オカダの部屋』ウルティモ・ドラゴン校長編・第2回! 「オカダみたいに『コイツは出世するな』って弟子は傍に置いてました」. New Japan Pro-Wrestling (in Japanese). 2015-05-08. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
  7. ^ Williams, Ian (June 14, 2017). "Kazuchika Okada Is the Best Wrestler in the World". Vice.
  8. ^ "Daily Update: Coronavirus notes, NOAH, WrestleMania". 29 March 2020.