Kazuchika Okada Reportedly Pushed for Takami Ohbari’s Removal as NJPW President

As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced last week that they have named Hiroshi Tanahashi as their new President and Representative Director for the company. Tanahashi replaced Takami Ohbari who previously held those positions in the company.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that one major reason for NJPW’s decision to shake up their upper management was due to issues involving NJPW’s staff members and Ohbari’s usage of power over them. Meltzer reported that this led to Ohbari generating backstage heat with a number of people including Kazuchika Okada who pushed for Ohbari’s removal from power.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that they felt Ohbari never really understood the wrestling business nor did he respect the value of Okada for NJPW. One person spoken to reportedly stated that Ohbari only viewed Okada as the lead role actor in a touring show.

In regards to NJPW’s decision to make Tanahashi their new President, one former employee spoken to reportedly stated “Depending on how successful Tanahashi as president will be, it could be one of the best business decisions made by Bushiroad about NJPW. Since 2013, all presidents were Bushiroad people (Kaname Tezuka and Katsuhiko Harada), or people chosen by Bushiroad (Harold Meij and Ohbari). It was the way Bushiroad controlled NJPW, but they were all people with either a little or zero experience in the industry so (they) couldn’t be popular enough among the NJPW talents and employees. While it was one of the reasons why all of them didn’t last long, Tanahashi has no such issues and should be meant for a long-term as president that would give NJPW stable leadership. Though the power structure will remain the same (Bushiroad will always remain the highest decision maker), Tanahashi’s regime should influence their power balance for the better for NJPW.“

Another former employee spoken to reportedly stated “I think it’s great. He’s going to be a guy who changes how you do business. I know he sees NJPW as being the WWE of Japan and he is young enough to enact changes and get New Japan out of the dark ages of how they do business.“