Okada Wants to Be a Wrestling Promoter After He Retires From the Ring

Kazuchika Okada is a 7-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion and current IWGP NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Champion with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii. He has a growing list of accolades and accomplishments at just 35 years old. He's thinking about retirement.

Some of this could be attributed to being a new dad and wanting to be there for all the milestones that so many wrestlers have missed by entertaining all of us.

While doing press for the movie about the late Antonio Inoki, Okada spoke of his post-retirement plans. He revealed that he doesn't think he has much time left in his in-ring career, so he has his sights on surpassing Inoki in promoting NJPW. He wants to utilize the internet to grow the overseas audience.

"I know people might say, ‘It’s impossible to surpass Mr. Inoki,’ but I think the only way to do it is to make pro wrestling more exciting. First of all, I would like to bring the attendance back to the level where it was at the time of Mr. Inoki’s Tokyo Dome, and then I would like to promote pro wrestling in a different way, since there are now video distribution services on the internet and so on.

In the past, Mr. Inoki also focused on overseas strategies and tried to bring New Japan wrestling to the world, but times have changed and there are many New Japan fans overseas through the internet, so I would like to exceed what Mr. Inoki did in this way. I don’t think I have that much time left in my career, so I want to do my best."

Inoki was honored by AEW on October 1, the one year anniversary of his death. WrestleDream featured AEW and NJPW talent with Inoki's family in attendance.

Okada, ISHII, and Tanahashi will defend their titles against Motor City Machine Guns and Josh Alexander at Destruction in Ryogoku on October 9.