YMMV / Kazuchika Okada

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • His… interesting character turn following his loss of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship to Kenny Omega in mid 2018 (dyed hair, remixed theme, no longer wearing his signature Badass Longcoat, and now carrying red balloons as part of his entrance). Is it Okada suffering a Heroic BSoD about losing the title, him being simply more relaxed without the pressures of being the champion weighing on him, or both?
  • The really mediocre showing in his return match with Yoshi-Hashi back in 2012 makes a lot more sense if you interpret it as a plan cooked up by Gedo to sucker Tanahashi into thinking he was about to have a cakewalk of a title match against an overconfident rookie.
• Awesome Music: Okada's theme song appropriately titled 'Rain Maker'.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Even someone of Okada's talent isn't immune to this, though it really began in 2017. Some fans and critics see Okada's lack of clean loses throughout the year as New Japan turning him into an Invincible Hero on par with John Cena, while others will defend that being the reigning IWGP Champion and the promotion's top star, it is important that he looks the strongest over all.
  • The biggest example of this was Okada's clean win over Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom 12. Many feel that New Japan wasted a perfect opportunity to cement Naito's status as a top star, having spent the previous four years working his way from The Scrappy to a legit main eventer.
• Creator's Pet: Seeing as Okada's former longtime manager is also NJPW's head booker, it's not hard to see why some fans don't fully embrace him as The Ace.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Once you hear a coin drop, the crowd goes wild.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While not a full blown scrappy, Okada was quickly heading down this path upon his return to New Japan. As if being viewed as a TNA failure wasn't bad enough, the New Japan fans outright booed Okada for having the nerve to challenge Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP Championship at the end of Wrestling Kingdom 6, right after he and Yoshi-Hashi had an EXTREMELY lackluster first match back against each other earlier the same night. Thankfully, with a combination of Gedo's booking, Tanahashi's skill to make almost any one look like a million bucks, and Okada's raw talent, the two had an epic encounter at The New Beginning 2012 and properly showcased Okada's potential.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Okada's time in TNA in a nutshell. While he hadn't yet become The Rainmaker, TNA was where Okada began to learn the value of establishing a character and presence. However, rather than tap into that and getting some shelf life out of him by allowing him to tap into a compelling persona that perhaps may have been a precursor to his famous gimmick, he was either Kiyoshi's jobber tag team partner or Samoa Joe's masked sidekick and pretty much existed to take a beating every few months. Depending on who you ask, this may have either been what NJPW was expecting to happen in order to humble Okada before pushing him to be their top star or this was one of the events that soured the relationship between the two companies. Either way, Okada came away with a few friends among TNA's wrestlers and had nothing good to say about the management.