>>8025549I don't think he's being punished for staying in the states, it was revealed later that he stayed because he was taking care of his fiance with cancer, and if they were mad at him he woulcn't have ended Okada's reign for him.
His reign was fucked up to a large degree by circumstance. Basically everybody who he could have had a compelling defence against has already challenged that year (Naito, ZSJ), has another title (Ospreay, Shingo) or is injured/possibly blacklisted (Ibushi). I know Tana is old and his knees are held together with glue, but he worked me into thinking it was possible for him to beat Shingo last year and a Tana challenge would have at least produced a great match. The second half of this year should have been all about Jay producing schizokino and taking on actual threats to his reign but still holding onto the throne, but with his only defences being the Forbidden Door four way and fucking Tama Tonga his whole reign has felt meaningless. Even a challenge from Ishii could at least have been fun, but they really should have found some way for him to feud with someone who could conceivably have beaten him before dropping it back to Okada.
