Kevin Kelly, the current AEW Collision and former NJPW commentator, recently appeared on episode #289 of the Super J-Cast podcast.
During it, Kelly discussed the future of Kazuchika Okada as Kelly shared his belief that Okada deserves to be the highest-paid wrestler in the industry. Okada has interest from AEW and WWE as his deal with NJPW is up next month.
“Also, I think there is a part of that (Shohei) Ohtani factor, the number one star in Japan, in all of sports is Ohtani and he just got a record-setting contract, doubling the previous high or at least close to doubling and I think that (Kazuchika) Okada is in that same conversation with Ohtani. Should Okada be the highest-paid star in pro wrestling? I think yes. I don’t know who the highest-paid star in wrestling is now and I have no idea what that dollar figure is. But whoever is making the most, Okada should at least make one more dollar than him.
The economics right now with Japan are a little bit of an issue because guys were getting paid in yen, the foreign wrestlers. So the wrestlers from the United States were getting paid in yen and then those yen converting to dollars and because the yen’s value to the dollar is less, they were getting a decrease in pay, less than their guarantee. So they had to adjust it and that’s just one of the realities that’s out there now. “
