>>13401935>His best work was as a heelYes, I know that but Japan has a very subtle, realistic way in how they present their wrestlers. A heel doesn't need to be an asshole who beats the audience over the audience over their head with le 'this town sucks, local sports team bad, i'm a bad guy' type of shit. I just find that corny as shit. But Japan does it differently. Take Naito, he is a heel (or at least was for the majority of his career), but the kind of mischievous heel who breaks the rules that fans love. And the crowd loves him for it, he's over as fuck but he's still an asshole. That's because heel and faces in Japan work like real actual human beings, not caricatures.
Frankly AEW does represent its wrestlers a million times better than WWE in that departure, the lines are a bit blurred and not so nonsensical (ex. Hangman/Swerve), but they also fall easily in the other direction (like MJF's this town bad/i'm le hero). Okada needs to be a heel, but the cocky type heel from Japan that everyone loves. The kind that means business, can kick your ass and loves to embarrass you, but doesn't need to explain he is bad to the audience for you to get it.
