It was confirmed over the weekend that former IWGP Tag Team champion Davey Boy Smith Jr. was officially gone from New Japan Pro Wrestling. We now have another reason the former New Japan star has opted to leave the company, as Dave Meltzer reports that Smith was unhappy with the promotion for not letting him wrestle in Impact.
Impact officials had interest in bring in the current MLW World Tag Team champion; however, New Japan wouldn’t let him work with the company due to officials still being sour over the way Impact treated Okada during his time there (transcript courtesy of
411Mania):
“They’re still mad at Impact over Okada. I remember Scott D’Amore went there one year at the Tokyo Dome, and it was a couple of years ago, and it’s just like, ‘it’s all new, all those people are gone, you know, we’re sorry about what happened with Okada,’ and they still have the mentality like, ‘these are the people that couldn’t figure out what to do with Okada.’ In hindsight, it does look pretty bad.“
It's a shame that New Japan and Impact won’t seemingly work together soon as there are numerous dream match-ups that could be made if both companies shared their talent.
Okada was in TNA/Impact Wrestling from 2010-2011. The reigning IWGP Heavyweight champion mostly wrestled in dark matches and lost; however, what many people remember about his brief stint in the company was his role as Joe’s sidekick, which was inspired by Kato from the Green Hornet.