Newsletter/images/06 06 07 En 08

---

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 Don Callis Family stable and is a former one-time AEW International Champion. He is also a former AEW World Trios Champion (with Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis). He is also a former one-time AEW Continental Champion, holding the record for the longest reign in the title's history and the longest for any AEW championship at 647 days. He was also the inaugural and only AEW Unified Champion when he simultaneously held the Continental and International titles together. Okada is best known for his 18-year original tenure in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he was a seven-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 and the most defenses as the champion with 36. 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 20 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 the "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, 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 13-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 with five. Okada won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship three more times and headlined NJPW's biggest annual event—Wrestle Kingdom—nine times (7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 and 20). Okada left NJPW in March 2024, immediately signing with AEW. Considered as one of the greatest active professional wrestlers in the world and of all time, 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. 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).

---

Article title : Kazuchika Okada
"2018-06-09. Rose, Bryan (2018-08-10). "NJPW G1 CLIMAX 28 NIGHT 17 LIVE RESULTS: OKADA VS. TANAHASHI". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved 2018-09-07...."
Article title : List of fake news websites
"Archived from the original on 2022-07-08. "The Left's Myths About Project 2025". NewsGuard. 2024-07-29. Retrieved 2024-08-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated..."
Article title : Cross-dressing
"Habits". Vice. Archived from the original on 2024-03-07. Retrieved 2024-07-04. Bent, Rosalie (2019-08-14). Dealing With the Baby In Your Bed!: Learning to..."
Article title : Marie Lora-Mungai
"(2016-06-19). "Trace TV Buys Pan-African VOD Platform". Retrieved 2016-08-07. "Buni.tv acquired by France's TRACE TV". 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2016-08-07. "Trace..."
Article title : List of lesbian bars
"Lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com. 27 September 2011. "La Grande Loge". Akg-Images.co.uk. AKG Images. Retrieved June 3, 2023. Van Dyke, Isobel (March 14, 2023). "The..."
Article title : Jim Ross
"on 2008-06-27. Retrieved 2008-06-24. Ross, Jim. "Upon Further Review". JR's Blog. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2008-06-24. "JR's..."
Article title : List of family relations in professional wrestling
"Retrieved 2011-06-26. Currier, Joseph (May 18, 2019). "JoJo & Bray Wyatt welcome birth of Knash Sixx Rotunda". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved May..."
Article title : List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century
"original on 2009-09-21. Retrieved 2009-08-03. "The MDM 2.4-m Hiltner Telescope". Archived from the original on 2010-06-07. Retrieved 2010-11-24. http://www..."
Article title : Dragon's Lair
"Retrieved 2014-06-15. "Babe of the Week: Out-of-Work Babes Gallery and Images - GameDaily". Archived from the original on 2009-04-14. Retrieved 2014-06-15. "40..."
Article title : List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1969
"1969-06-08. p. 670. Retrieved 2024-10-03 – via newspapers.com. "Robert E. Morris". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 2024-10-07. "The..."

---