5-Star Match Reviews: Kazuchika Okada vs. Bryan Danielson – NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18

The term “dream match” gets thrown around a lot these days and it was used to describe the second singles match between Bryan Danielson and Kazuchika Okada. Both NJPW and AEW thought that a rematch from Forbidden Door II was worthy of being the semi-main-event of NJPW’s biggest show of the year.

Previously I was writing for a site called TJR Wrestling and now this series is coming to Blog of Doom. For now you can check out the series in its entirety here.

However, now that the initial fallout of that match has passed and we can look at this match with cooler heads instead of being in the heat of the moment…it’s fair to say that this match isn’t worthy of such high praise. Why not? Read on to find out.

The story

Danielson beat Okada at Forbidden Door in Toronto in June (I was there live, solid match but hard to enjoy fully because most people there were completely exhausted from the earlier Omega/Ospreay match) but left that match badly injured. He spent the second half of 2023 either nursing one injury or collecting another, to the point that he had to wrestle this match with an eyepatch. But Danielson soldiered on because he’s convinced he’s approaching the final years of his career and wants to cross off as many things off his wrestling bucket list as possible. One thing on that list was wrestle in New Japan; he wanted to do this since he was in WWE but that company never let him because they didn’t want him getting hurt. Lo and behold…

Anyway, despite injuring his orbital bone in October, Danielson challenged Okada to a rematch instead of Okada challenging Danielson since it was Okada who lost and not Danielson. Okada accepted, clearly wanting to wrestle one of the original kings of the American indies and one of the most influential mat grapplers in modern wrestling. This would be Okada’s chance to redeem himself after losing to Danielson who, incidentally, beat Okada in Toronto with only one functioning arm, and tie the score between them.

The match

This match originally took place on January 4, 2024. It was rated *****1/4 by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

Danielson still has his eyepatch here so he’s clearly not wrestling at 100% here. Tense start to things as neither man completes a lock-up. Okada sticks out his chin a few times to mock Danielson a few times but then Danielson succeeds in taking Okada down. Okada wrestles his way into an armlock but Danielson counters him a few times and goes for a cover but Okada gets to the ropes, leading to a stalemate.

They do the Greco-Roman knuckle lock and Danielson starts hitting elbows while their arms are still locked together. Okada returns the favor with elbows, Danielson tries to chain-grapple, and Okada shuts him down with a forearm. Okada follows with an elbow takedown and then lands a corner elbow/DDT combo for a two-count. He applies his Money Clip submission hold but Danielson gets to the ropes right away so Okada lands his snampare/running basement dropkick combo to send Danielson to the floor. Okada DDTs Danielson on the floor and goes for a huge running crossbody…only to run into a Busaiku Knee instead.

Danielson pulls Okada by his lariat arm, lands a shoulder armbreaker, wraps the arm through the guardrail, and smashes a metal door into it. Back in the ring, Danielson lands another armbreaker, wraps Okada’s arm behind him, hits several elbows, and lands an arm-trap bridging northern lights suplex for two. Then Danielson stomps on Okada’s elbow and warns the referee, “YOU TELL HIM IM GONNA BREAK HIS FUCKING ARM!” He follows with knees to the arm and shoulder and a Fujiwara armbar and cranks it as hard as he can but Okada gets a ropebreak with his foot.

Danielson kicks Okada’s arm and stretches it through the ropes to weaken it further. He hits two running dropkicks to Okada’s right shoulder and charges for a third but Okada hits first with a big boot out of nowhere. Danielson blocks a reverse neckbreaker and kicks the bad arm some more. Danielson charges again but this time Okada’s reverse neckbreaker is successful and he gets some time to restore feeling in his arm. Okada slams Danielson in preparation for his diving elbow but Danielson cuts him off and lands some corner uppercuts. Danielson follows with an avalanche butterfly suplex into a crossface but Okada’s quick to get a ropebreak.

The action spills to the apron where Danielson kicks Okada’s bad shoulder some more. Except he goes to that well one time too many as Okada catches his leg and counters with a Tombstone Piledriver on the apron.

Both men recover for a bit and then return to the ring. Okada starts booting Danielson in a corner and even removes his eyepatch. Danielson has a hard time seeing which Okada uses to his advantage by hitting a standing dropkick as Danielson comes off the ropes. Okada lands a diving elbow drop using his right arm (seriously, why?! You’ve got a fully functional left arm with an elbow pad on it for protection, why not use that one and save yourself some pain?) and then perseveres long enough to do the RAINMAKER POSE. Okada’s first Rainmaker lariat gets countered into a crucifix pin for a two-count. Danielson follows with two more roundhouse kicks, fires up, and starts hitting his ROH collar elbows. But these only serve to fire Okada up. He goes for another Tombstone but Danielson escapes and hits another Busaiku Knee. One, two, Okada kicks out. Crossface. Okada reaches out to the ropes. Danielson rolls into another cover for a one-count and then into a scissored armbar using his legs. Okada refuses to give up so Danielson applies a crossface stretch in combination with the armbar. Okada’s eyes turn empty like a fish’s eyes for a few seconds and then he fires up long enough to get a ropebreak with his foot.

Danielson grabs both of Okada’s wrists and starts stomping on his face. He tries rolling into another crossface but this time Okada counters with a perfect Rainmaker lariat. Okada takes serious recoil and soon after begins a standing kick exchange with Danielson. Danielson’s kicks only anger Okada as he hits back with a stiff forearm. Fighting spirit I guess. Danielson tries another crossface but Okada counters with mounted punches and a German suplex. He maintains waist control and teases another Rainmaker but Danielson blocks with kicks to the arm and face. Then Danielson charges for another Busaiku Knee. He misses but he also manages to block another Rainmaker with a Misawa rolling elbow and then connects with a successful Busaiku Knee. But he’s not done. Danielson fires up the ‘YES’ chants and charges for another knee strike. Okada ducks and hits a spinning slam. Danielson avoids another standard Rainmaker and a spinning variant. Okada lands a standing dropkick to stop another charge but Danielson fires up and charges again. Okada catches him on his shoulders with a Landslide in reference to his former ally Shinsuke Nakamura. Okada follows that with another successful Rainmaker, bad arm and all. One, two, and three! Okada pins Danielson to even the score 1-1!

Winner after 23:24: Kazuchika Okada

Review

Let me begin by saying that this wasn’t a 5-star, top-tier wrestling match. Not even close. It was the first time in a long time that Bryan Danielson of all people was in a match that could be described as ‘overrated’ or ‘disappointing’. This wasn’t on the same level as Okada versus Tanahashi, or even Okada versus Omega. Nor was it on the same level as Danielson’s amazing ROH matches form 2006-2009 or his best work in WWE, or even his AEW matches with Hangman Page or with MJF. It was a step below, a disappointment, a match that had motion but not movement. For those that still haven’t seen this match, don’t bother. Both men had much better matches with other wrestlers for several reasons.

Even though it was billed as another dream match these two guys weren’t on the same wavelength. Danielson wrestled circles around Okada and actually went into this match with a halfway decent strategy. He went after Okada’s lariat arm relentlessly and with surgical precision. This was the obvious thing to do; anyone in Danielson’s boots would’ve done the same given Okada’s one-track strategy to winning matches.

But the problem was Okada: he didn’t adapt to this new challenger in any way. No matter how thoroughly and severely Danielson destroyed his arm Okada kept relying on it for both his biggest moves and his small ones (see the elbow drop mentioned above).

Doing so did three things. First, it made Okada look somewhat strong by overcoming serious pain (that’s probably what he was going for, but he wasn’t that convincing with that narrative). Second, it kept Okada’s movements mechanical and repetitive, which made this match less exciting overall. How many times can one watch the same wrestler follow the same formula down to the smallest detail and expect people to react the same way? Third, it weakened Danielson’s credibility as a competitor. Danielson was a challenge Okada was largely unfamiliar with: a submission specialist with plenty of big wins under his belt to back up his words Yes, they had wrestled once before but that makes this match even worse in context because Okada knew what to expect from Danielson yet still stuck to his formula.

New Japan might’ve been the home of the best shooters and mat specialist once upon a time but that aura dissipated once Gedo took over and started pushing strikers and showmen. Yet all of Danielson’s credibility as a submission specialist went out the window when Okada kept surviving so many brutal submission holds AND kept relying on his right arm for offense. If he had only done one of those things, if he had taken tons of damage to his right arm and out of desperation resorted to using his left arm for offense (which, again, any sensible person would’ve done in this case), then Okada winning would’ve been both forgivable and believable.

Instead, Okada hit a Rainmaker with his bad arm and it was still enough to drop Danielson for the three-count. Yes, Danielson wasn’t wrestling at 100% and fought most of this match with vision out of only one eye. But it’s not like that hasn’t happened before (Takeshi Morishima sure knows about all of that) and it’s not like Danielson hasn’t wrestled with taped-up body parts before. So for these guys do go down the same road once again, for Okada to have the same sort of match with Danielson as he has had with a bevy of other wrestlers – from Tanahashi, to Ishii, to Okada, to Ospreay, to countless others – doesn’t make him a contender for GOAT wrestler; with each passing year Okada is turning more into a Hulk Hogan or John Cena clone with his copy-and-paste wrestling match, with the only key difference being his NJPW-themed paintjob.

For a guy often lauded as the modern GOAT, at least in Japan, Okada has become woefully predictable, almost to the point of being robotic. He only ever wins his matches with either the Rainmaker lariat or the Money Clip cobra clutch, and he didn’t start using that submission hold until 2020, eight years after he debuted as the Rainmaker.

This might be a nitpick, but let’s compare Okada to other wrestlers often bandied about as the greatest of all time (or at least in recent time), and let’s look at something easy to compare: how they end their matches. Wrestlers can all copy certain moves, but finishers are obviously the most important. They’re like gimmicks, unique to specific wrestlers. As such, let’s see what many of the top wrestlers have used to win matches over their long careers:

• Shawn Michaels: Sweet Chin Music, Teardrop suplex, spike piledriver, a Figure-4, other shenanigans over the years;
• Ric Flair: Figure-4 leglock, diving kneedrop, various quick pins involving cheating or countering;
• The Undertaker: Tombstone, chokeslam, Last Ride, Hell’s Gate gogoplata, triangle choke;
• Rey Mysterio: the 619 into one of three or four possible follow-up moves, super Frankensteiner, quick reversals to his opponent’s oncoming attacks;
• Kenny Omega: One-Winged Angel, V-Trigger, Croyt’s Wrath, Golden/Rain Trigger
• Will Ospreay: Hidden Blade, Stormbreaker, countless crazy dives;
• Mitsuharu Misawa: Tiger Driver, Tiger Driver ’91, Frozen Emerald, Frozen Emerald Kai, Tiger Suplex, Tiger Suplex ’85, frog splash, rolling elbow, running elbow, one-two elbow combo
• Kenta Kobashi: running lariat, short-range burning lariat, Brainbuster, moonsault, diving leg drop, jackknife powerbomb, Orange Crush Bomb, Double-arm DDT, Kentucky Bomb, Burning Hammer
• Toshiaki Kawada: Folding powerbomb, Brainbuster, Stretch Plum, gamengiri, Dangerous Backdrop
• Hiroshi Tanahashi: High Fly Flow, Texas Cloverleaf, dragon suplex, armtrap German suplex

All of the wrestlers listed above won their matches in different ways to keep both their opponents and the fans guessing. Variety is the spice of life and that applies to wrestling as well. Having broader move-sets makes matches harder to predict, protects existing finishers from becoming overused, and prevents some wrestlers from becoming over-reliant on one or two moves to the point of diminishing returns.

Only a handful of guys could make spamming the same move over and over work and those wrestlers were special. This includes guys like Steve Austin, The Rock, and Triple H. But they didn’t wrestle like Okada; most of their matches were wild and unpredictable with their finishers coming out of nowhere. Even Bret Hart who won most of his biggest matches with the sharpshooter, built to it in different ways so that the final stretch leading to the same conclusion was different every time.

Okada wasn’t like any of them; he went for the Rainmaker often even when injured to the point that it made him look more rigid than spontaneous. If someone reading this were to put themselves in his boots, their first reaction to Danielson’s work on the arm would be, “fuck, this hurts”, followed by “ok, now I can’t use this arm to win because I’ll hurt myself, hurt Danielson less, and risk him predicting my attacks ahead of time”.

Over the past four years in particular Okada has proven that he isn’t just a wrestler who wins one single move; he brushes off even the deepest and most focused attacks to his arm and still wins in the same way. This doesn’t make him a bad wrestler; it makes him a frustrating one. Why spend your time watching supposed dream matches of his when he’s pretty much guaranteed to not just win but win in the same way as before? Why follow his career when there’s no deviation from the norm, minimal sense of surprise, and any real drama only happening during the last 5-10 minutes of his matches?

Final Rating: ****

There were some solid moments of wrestling here but none of them were anything to crow about. As much as I liked Okada in the past, I don’t think this was his best effort, which is a shame. Danielson clearly looked like he’s on borrowed time and wants to have as many epics before finally retiring. Unfortunately this match didn’t live up to the hype. It was a bit better than their match at Forbidden Door but it was still somewhat tedious.

Part of that comes from Okada who I’ve concluded is a guy who simply will not deviate from his match formula no matter what. His biggest matches follow the same structure and lack spontaneity. He has spent the past decade settling into a position of comfort and never gets booked in any sort of weakness. He has, for all intents and purposes, become NJPW’s version of John Cena or Roman Reigns on their worst days, rarely putting in the effort to venture out of his comfort zone because he’s smart enough to realize that people will buy his existing shtick hook, line, and sinker.

There’s some value in seeing Danielson in a NJPW ring for the first time in 20 years but that novelty wore thin pretty quickly. His logic-driven and strategic attacks were lost on Okada who brushed them off with ease. At no point did it feel like Okada was in danger of tapping, or losing in general for that matter. This was the rematch everyone expected it to be with a thin plot designed for the sole purpose of creating a rubber match.

Hopefully, if they do wrestle one more match, then a) both men will be 100% healthy; and b) Okada will actually put on a performance that will make people believe he has a chance of losing. Because Danielson could do all the mat wrestling and limbwork in the world, but none of it matters if the person taking doesn’t actually sell it for more than five seconds at a time.

Thanks for reading.