Kazuchika Okada was the ‘Roman Reigns of Japan’ according to Bronson Reed.
Following his WWE release in 2021, Bronson Reed, then competing under the name JONAH, made his mark in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he notably defeated current AEW Unified Champion Kazuchika Okada during the 2022 G1 Climax tournament.
Appearing on the Battleground Podcast, Reed was asked about his WWE release and what led to him being re-signed by the company. Reed highlighted his clash with Okada as a moment that put him back in the spotlight and drew comparisons between the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion and Roman Reigns.
“Yeah, I think for me, I’ve always had hurdles to sort of jump over in my career. Like even, even to getting to WWE before I was released, you know, I had a few tryouts and I was always one of those guys that never got hot shotted. I told you straight away, I’ve always had to prove myself, and I remember when I did get released from NXT, I was like, ‘well, I’m just going to go out there and prove myself again and make sure that they know they made the wrong decision.’ I made sure that I knew I was going to get to Japan, but I didn’t know that I was going to have the matches I was going to have, and then how everything worked, and I got to work with, obviously, Okada, who at the time was unbeatable in Japan. You could say he was the Roman Reigns of New Japan at the time, for sure, and to beat him in the G1 and do what I did, I think it put a lot of eyes back on me. When the time was right, I got the call from Triple H to come back, and I made sure that I had that chip on my shoulder, like I said, to go, hey, well, if I can do this here, I can definitely do it anywhere else, and I’ve always wanted that opportunity to be able to do that on a Monday Night Raw or SmackDown or the PLEs. Now you’re getting to see it finally.”
-Bronson Reed
During the October 6 edition of Monday Night RAW, Paul Heyman announced that Reed will take on Roman Reigns in an Australian Street Fight at Crown Jewel: Perth on October 11.
Regarding Reigns’ upcoming WWE schedule, Dave Meltzer recently revealed that he’s currently planned to feature in this year’s WarGames match at Survivor Series. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on future plans for Bronson Reed as soon as we hear more.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
