With Okada leaving, this has made me think of perhaps the biggest case of multiply big players in the company leaving all at once: first the exodus of 84 and exodus of 88.
The exodus of 84 was led by Akira Maeda and Hisashi Shinma; Maeda’s reason was feeling he wasn’t being used properly in the company as a main-eventer on par with the likes of Choshu, Fujinami, and even Inoki himself (Maeda was very popular, but was usually always lower on the card) while Shinma’s reason was due to the scandal of embezzlement that implicated both he and Inoki, with Shinma believing Inoki may need a new promotion as a result of being ousted from NJPW (which of course never came to pass).
Maeda convinced several top stars and promising young talent from NJPW to join him, such as Satoru Sayama (Tiger Mask I), Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Nobuhiko Takada; of course, the UWF would become known for its “shoot-style” presentation and all clean finishes (compared to NJPW and AJPW at the time, where large amount of finishes were Dq’s, count outs and interference); this new promotion would turn this men into even bigger stars than they were but ultra toy would crumble due to financial difficulties and the dispute between Maeda and Sayama, it’s top two stars.
Maeda and co (minus Sayama) would return to NJPW in 86, resulting in one of the most financially successful periods and feuds in the company’s history with Maeda’s UWF crew warring with the NJPW loyalists; of course, this would all end with Maeda’s infamous shoot kick on Riki Choshu (although it was preceded by earlier tension between Maeda and Inoki, along with Maeda’s infamous match with Andre the Giant), and Maeda would refuse to work for NJPW in any capacity at this point.
Maeda and his crew would create UWF Newborn, an even more successful version of the promotion, this time with two young promising NJPW trainees in Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki, along with training homegrown talent like Kiyoshi Tamura; Newborn would be the first wrestling promotion to sell out the Tokyo Dome, even before NJPW could do so; ultimately Newborn would suffer the same fate as the OG UWF, this time with tensions between Maeda and Takada and resulting in the end of the promotion and creation of its off-shoots (UWF-i, RINGS, PWFG, Pancrase).
These mass exoduses deprived the company of some of its big players (Maeda, Sayama, Fujiwara) and some of its most promising young talents (Takada, Funaki, Suzuki), but out of this came the rise of the “Three Musketeers of Fighting Spirit”: Shinya Hashimoto, Keiji Muto and Masahiro Chono, three of the biggest stars in the company’s history and the cause of their biggest boom/financial period in the 90’s.
So basically, Okada is a big loss but the company has been through similar stuff and things will work out (thank you Rainmaker).
by MrPuroresu42
