The Omega-Okada match from Wrestle Kingdom 11 has been the talk of the wrestling world for the past month. More people are aware of New Japan Pro Wrestling than they were before and this has undoubtedly been a boon for the company when it comes to their bottom line. In short, Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada have likely made NJPW a whole bunch of money.
In Okada's case, just consider it a return on their investment.
Seemingly lost in VICE Sports' big story about Omega, amidst all the details of the big WK11 match and the 10,000 new subscribers to New Japan World, a little tidbit came to light.
NJPW is apparently paying Kazuchika Okada $2.2 million a year.
That's a lot of Yen.
A little shy of a quarter BILLION, to be exact.
Now, while we don't know how accurate that figure is, if it's true, it would represent about 10% of their annual revenue stream, provided it hasn't changed much since 2015. Back then, Bushiroad founder Takaaki Kidani noted that NJPW's revenues totaled around $21.6 million U.S. (2.7 billion Yen.)
We'll let you know if anyone in either Okada's camp or NJPW confirms or denies this report.
