Great-O-Khan Is Great: A Deep Dive
There’s no wrestler in New Japan Pro Wrestling, perhaps even more broadly beyond that, who is more unfairly disparaged than Great-O-Khan.
He’s got kind of a goofy gimmick that a lot of people can’t look past, popular talking heads like Dave Meltzer don’t like him, and the ratings his matches get on Cagematch are usually below what they should be.
Are all those people really wrong about the guy?
The answer is simple. Yes, absolutely.
I’ve seen Great-O-Khan’s talents disrespected one time too many, so I thought it’d be handy to have something easy to reference when it comes to vouching for how good a wrestler he is, rather than just having to type out the same arguments over and over. This is five matches to get to know Great-O-Khan, five matches which are, for my money, some of the best matches of their respective years, and excellent showcases of Great-O-Khan’s talents to not only help produce a great match, but matches where he is undeniably major force or a reason behind why the match is good, matches where he is a large contributor to their quality.
Let’s get started.
G1 Climax 31 Day 13, October 9th 2021 - vs Kota Ibushi (G1 Climax A Block)
Great-O-Khan isn’t given too much to do most of the year, but there’s one time of the year where he is given free reign to just have the best singles matches he possibly can with no gimmicks or restrictions, and it’s the time of year he always shows up for and becomes a demon.
O-Khan showed something special in his earlier block match against Zack, and as the man himself said when they were promoting the 2024 G1, that was the match where he showed out and people realised just how good he really was. It’s a match I highly recommend, just a beautiful fifteen minutes of technical wrestling goodness. I’d call it the second best match of the entire G1.
Not the best, though.
That goes to this one.
After some initial striking and posturing, this match goes to a similar place to where O-Khan’s match against ZSJ went, with O-Khan and Ibushi going at it on the mat. But it’s got a distinctly grittier feeling, being more of a struggle. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it shoot-style or anything, but it feels really nice to watch, and is in a different class to most modern day New Japan technical wrestling. Real thinking man’s tekkers, with each guy having to not only overpower the other, but you can see the gears turning as they’re engaging. There’s no cooperation to be found in their routine, they’re truly locked in battle, and the occasional hard shots thrown between rolls help remind you of this.
When they’re mostly having a battle down on the mat, that’s something that O-Khan is decisively better at. But Ibushi’s greatest gifts have never come from the mat, they come from his strikes. And as the match moves more and more towards that in its back half, Ibushi is able to land increasingly more strikes, and O-Khan quickly finds himself becoming outmatched, in what would end up being quite a common theme for him in kayfabe.
O-Khan isn’t without his own talents, though. He’s unconventional and strange in a way that can even surprise someone like Kota Ibushi. The iron claw remains a huge threat, and it’s part of this amazing/stupid/amazingly stupid spot where O-Khan blocks the Kamigoye by applying the iron claw to Ibushi’s knee, and then tries to hit the Eliminator on Ibushi by his knee. It’s fucking awesome. It obviously doesn’t work, because that’s not a thing you can do, and Ibushi comes away with the win.
To this day, this rightfully stands as Great-O-Khan’s highest rated singles bout on Cagematch. But with only an 8.07 score, it still feels underrated. Speaking personally, I think that’s a great score for a match, but by Cagematch’s usual inflated standards, it’s definitely too low. But we’re not here to get into the intricacies of the Cagematch system and its voterbase. My own point of view is this – If this match had a crowd that was allowed to make noise, it’d go beyond being the best match of the tournament and be an outright classic.
The best match in an uncharacteristically weak G1.
G1 Climax 32 Day 12, August 6th 2022 - vs Jay White (G1 Climax B Block)
O-Khan has firmly been a heel for most of his time in New Japan. The only time up until this point where he got to be a face was when he was facing somebody even more despicable, like Chase Owens earlier in this particular tournament. But they don’t get more despicable or underhanded than Jay White, the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, someone who will cut any corner he can, someone with no sense of honour or decency, and someone who has used that to reach the top.
People love an underdog story.
Everybody in the block is an underdog against the reigning IWGP Champion, but going into this match, with the only singles victory of note in his whole career being a New Japan Cup upset against Tetsuya Naito, O-Khan is particularly ill-equipped to defeat Jay White. But that doesn’t mean the fans don’t want to see it. It’s not even about O-Khan, the fans just want to see Jay White get knocked off of his high horse.
But also, secretly, I get the feeling that over the past twenty-one or so months since Great-O-Khan made his return from excursion, the local fans have come to have a certain fondness for him, goofy Mongolian jiangshi attire and all. They’re ready to cheer for him, they just need the opportunity.
Hated heel Jay White gives them that opportunity. Unfortunately, COVID restrictions take it away.
This is one of those matches where based on the intensity of the crowd as they clap along to the action, you can just tell that if they could make noise, they would be screaming.
This is a really brilliant little match. It tells a very simple, but effective story. In what was quite a dull and uninspired year for Jay White (who hated clap crowds more than any of us), he turns in one of his most focused performances of the year, going after O-Khan’s leg relentlessly. If the crowd weren’t ready to cheer for O-Khan already, White’s work very quickly helps turn the usually heel O-Khan into this match’s sympathetic babyface. O-Khan’s selling of the leg is excellent, with his struggle always being present in the match. He immerses the crowd into the pain he’s feeling, and they’re desperate for him to turn the tide. To give an example of how good O-Khan is as a limb seller from this match, he hits his signature Mongolian Chops, grabs his knee, and collapses afterwards. That little jump he does on the Mongolian Chops was enough to hurt his knee and bring him down. Did he need to outright collapse? Probably not, but too much is so much better than not enough, and O-Khan’s natural cartooniness makes it come off as a purely earnest effort, something that makes you smile, rather than roll your eyes. He hits a few more Mongolian Chops later in the match, and while he doesn’t collapse this time, you better believe he sells the leg after each and every single one of those motherfuckers.
The tide doesn’t turn all at once. Rather, it’s White’s excessive focus on the leg that leads to this match starting to get away from him. Jay White is a wrestler who finds counters and opportunities in everything. He’s not really a limb work guy, and doesn’t know the ‘right’ way to target a limb. He goes after the leg so often that his attacks become sloppy and predictable, and O-Khan is able to start avoiding them, and drag himself back into the match.
When it seems like O-Khan has fully turned the tide, and the crowd is in a frenzy…a clap frenzy, our hearts are broken and the rug is pulled out from underneath us at the last possible moment.
The finish is brilliant. O-Khan has Jay White locked in the iron claw, and it seems like victory might be on O-Khan’s side, but Jay White kicks at the leg, and after all the work White put into targeting it earlier, it finally pays off for him, and O-Khan crumples at the worst possible moment, Jay White hitting his signature Blade Runner out of nowhere.
The special touch is something that only O-Khan could pull off. Even on his back, unconscious and completely done, O-Khan’s iron claw does not leave Jay White’s face. White has to hurriedly, painfully, peel O-Khan’s claw off his face before he can make the cover, and win the match. The finish is still one I think about every time I see a Blade Runner. It’s so awesome.
One of the things that got me to do this whole write-up, the last straw if you will, was someone who, while talking trash about O-Khan, admitted that this match was indeed great, and either match of the tournament or at least in that discussion, but they said that Jay White carried O-Khan, downplaying O-Khan’s role (the fucking babyface in the match) entirely.
I’ll be blunt. If you watch this match and come away thinking O-Khan was carried, you’re genuinely fucking stupid. There’s no easy way to say it. You’re dumb. You’re blind. You don’t know ball. Phrase it however you want. It’s a take so idiotic that it gave me secondhand embarrassment just reading it.
Neither man was carried in this match. While we’re naturally focusing on O-Khan, let’s give props to the other side too. Jay White has to be commended for this performance. His 2022 was somewhat infamous, as his general fatigue of travelling to Japan and hatred of clap crowds led to a downturn in his motivation, one that was very noticeable not only in hindsight, but was obvious at the time too. I don’t think anybody was particularly surprised that he was gone by February the following year. But that’s neither here nor there. Despite the year being a bad one for him, Jay White is in fine form here. His control and trashtalking are really good and make you want to get his comeuppance badly, he feels oppressive on top in the best way, his chops sound fantastic, and he consistently focuses and whittles O-Khan down using his leg as an equaliser, and finds the way to heartbreakingly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. When he’s getting beaten down, he bumps really well, putting O-Khan over as a deadly opponent, and he sells the iron claw beautifully. O-Khan is just putting his hand over a dude’s face, so it’s on the receiver to really sell it as something scary and damaging, and White is a fine example of how exactly to do it.
As a thought, Jay White, as the top heel, is generally in control of most of his matches this year. Why is this considered a bad year for him? Why weren’t his other matches as good as this one? Hear me out, but could it possibly have something to do with the guy on the other side of the ring? No, that’s just crazy…
Again, the best match of the entire tournament. O-Khan is two for two!
G1 Climax 34 Day 17, August 15th 2024 - vs Shingo Takagi (G1 Climax A Block Playoff Round 1)
Great-O-Khan had the best match in the 2021 G1 with his match with Kota Ibushi. In 2022, he did it again, with Jay White. In 2023, he didn’t manage the threepeat. He didn’t even really come that close. But in 2024, he had himself a very good tournament. But despite some great matches, it seemed the crown of best bout was destined to slip out of his hands…until Great-O-Khan went on a run, and earned himself one last match, one final opportunity to have the best match of the tournament. And he did it. He pulled it off.
Great-O-Khan went into this tournament declaring that he wanted to face each opponent in their ideal type of match. Betting on himself in this way was a success, and his versatility was highlighted (especially with the bullshit KOPW gimmick matches he had already been doing that year, and fully committing to). Watching that tournament run was nothing short of a delight, and he got rewarded in a rare case of wrestling serving as a meritocracy with a playoffs spot. Being down 0-4 and going on an incredible 5-0 comeback, only able to sneak into the playoffs through the new format allowing three through per block, was an effective story for the crowd. With every victory, the crowd got more and more behind O-Khan, with his upset win over SANADA getting audible gasps and a pop from the crowd, that kind of beautiful crowd reaction that only comes from a classic G1 upset.
While I just talked about O-Khan’s versatility, and he’s proven that he can work most styles, he’s found what really works for him with the judo-inspired grappling. O-Khan’s strategy in this match is apparent, slowing the pace and grinding Takagi down, particularly working on the right arm. Takagi, for his part, is good! Any match that asks him to sell an arm leads to inconsistent results, but he’s definitely on the higher end this time around. He continues to use his right arm, but he is grabbing it after every strike. Considering how long this match goes on, and how much damage O-Khan survives, it feels like a deliberate choice to display just how much O-Khan’s arm work has stifled the offensive potential of Takagi’s shots. He’s not putting O-Khan down even though he should be.
Unfortunately for O-Khan, there is a weakness in his game. Even with Takagi weakened, he just doesn’t have the offensive arsenal that someone like Takagi does. Once Takagi starts throwing out real bombs, and his deadliest attacks, O-Khan crumples and can’t keep up, the way he seemingly always does when matches get to that stage. O-Khan did excellent work to heavily minimise the damage Takagi could dish out, but he doesn’t have the constitution to stick it out to the end.
The match also ends excitingly, with O-Khan about to bust out a totally new move (since shown to be a wrist-clutch Eliminator), but getting heartbreakingly stopped at the last second and put down.
O-Khan is an incredible professional wrestler, and with matches like this, it’s baffling that more people don’t know it.
Following this tournament, he would even have his first ever IWGP Heavyweight Championship match, and the crowd was excited to see it. It was entirely earned on his own merits. Unfortunately, that match was against a blind, kneeless Naito who nobody except Zack was getting a good match out of at that point. Naito may have wrestled that match shirtless, but the t-shirt in his brain was firmly on, infuriatingly giving O-Khan genuinely fucking nothing on the mat even when O-Khan was moving at half speed for him. Truly a British Bulldog at Summerslam 1992-esque performance. Probably because of the whole doublevision thing. Hard to do anything remotely resembling grappling when your opponent’s arm is visible in two different places for you. It was a real bummer, and I hope O-Khan gets another shot in the main event again.
G1 Climax 35 Day 10, August 2nd 2025 - vs Zack Sabre Jr.
What do you think the best pairing in New Japan Pro Wrestling is? Like which two wrestlers, when thrown into a match against each other, always results in something great and very much worth watching?
I’m sure everyone has their own answers, but for my money, the answer is Great-O-Khan and Zack Sabre Jr.
While technical wrestling within the heavyweight division of the company has improved a lot with the rise of Uemura, Oleg, Oiwa, and other promising future prospects who are fully capable of some real fucking graps, it’s never been a primary focus of late 2010s and early 2020s New Japan as a company. Their main event formula and idea of a great match is what it is, but I always thought it was a bit sad that Zack Sabre Jr. was so lonely. He’s usually kind of on an island when it comes to doing the kind of technical wrestling that he really wants to do.
So it’s no surprise that every single time he and O-Khan step into a ring together, they go at it hard. Sloppy, exhausting graps with both men audibly panting with exertion from the sheer struggle of tangling with this other guy. They have an absolutely beautiful chemistry, and they’ve never had a match better than this particular one right here.
As the main event of the show, they get more time here than they have in their previous G1 matches, and they use it well. Zack targets O-Khan’s right arm, and selling the damage to that dominant arm while still being able to wrestle properly is a problem that even some great wrestlers struggle to deal with.
Not O-Khan, though.
It’s one of the single best limb selling performances I’ve ever seen, and I genuinely mean every word of that.
It’s all in the details. The little details that O-Khan has such a strong grasp of that pushes O-Khan above his contemporaries.
It’s not like it’s a particularly subtle thing, but it’s hard not to admire it when most wrestlers would never go that far. We’ve all seen a wrestler hit a one-legged bridge to highlight leg damage or whatever, but it’s genuinely very rare that a wrestler will completely adjust and alter all of their signature moves to fit the damage caused by the narrative.
Beyond just general grabbing, making pained faces, and the other basics of selling a limb, O-Khan goes a step beyond and illustrates in detail exactly how Zack’s targeting of his right arm has affected him, and why it causes him to lose the match. You’ve got O-Khan hitting the Mongolian Chops, immediately being in incredible pain and realising ‘Oh my god, that hurt so much. I can’t do that again.’ And so, he hits a one-armed Mongolian Chop, using only his left hand. O-Khan manages to hit his finisher, the Eliminator, out of nowhere, but because of the damage to his right arm, he’s forced to hit it with the non-dominant arm, allowing Zack to kick out. It’s a brilliant way of not only protecting his own finish, but putting over Zack’s strategy as legitimately match-winning. If he hadn’t wrestled this exact match, if he hadn’t worked on the right arm so much, O-Khan would have just hit the Eliminator normally, and he would have won.
Here’s another one for you. Zack is out on his back, and O-Khan is trying to finish him off. But he can’t drag Zack’s dead weight carcass up with his arm so damaged. His solution is to bring one of Zack’s arms to his mouth and bite down on his hand, using everything at his disposal to desperately drag Zack to his feet. These details are things that other wrestlers in the company just do not give you.
Zack finishes O-Khan off with an armbar, but even in this hopeless situation O-Khan applies the iron claw. Zack simply and calmly adjusts his positioning and grip, and gets the tap, ending one of my favourite matches of 2025. I didn’t mention this earlier, but the crowd is super into this match too, and naturally get behind O-Khan as an underdog, the “O-Khan” chants sounding out loudly and consistently through the match’s back half. Even with his push over, there’s still something here. The crowd still wants Great-O-Khan. They want to see him succeed. This match, and his earlier tournament match with TAKESHITA are proof of that.
An absolutely incredible match, and stunningly, only the second best match of the tournament. Taichi vs Finlay was just that good, having a classic and one of my favourite G1 matches in history.
New Japan Cup Day 1, March 4th 2026 - vs Yuya Uemura
Things have changed since our last match. United Empire has turned fully heel, and O-Khan along with them. This results in an interesting display of selflessness from O-Khan in this match, as he goes against Yuya Uemura in Korakuen Hall.
From his matches with Zack Sabre Jr., Ibushi, and others, we know how good O-Khan is down on the mat. Uemura is also known to be quite good down there, with his G1 match against Ryohei Oiwa being widely acclaimed for its stylistic differences to what New Japan usually offers.
Not only that, but these two have faced off before, back in 2024 for the KOPW title. They were evenly matched there, and had a fun ‘Storm Catch Rules’ match at Dominion that year, a match with no strikes, and only two rope breaks allowed (sound familiar?) It’s a good match that I do recommend.
When this match was first announced, my mind filled with fantasies of the cool-ass shit they could do. Eliminator countered into an arm drag! Eliminator countered into the Deadbolt Suplex! And what do you know, they did both of those things, and it was just as cool as you would expect.
So going into this match, you would expect a mat-based classic, right? Well, O-Khan had other ideas. He knows that the job of the heel is to put over the babyface, and he chose to do so by presenting himself as completely and utterly inferior to Uemura on the mat. Every time they grapple, Uemura dominates. It’s the last thing you would expect, but you have to give credit to O-Khan’s philosophy here and how strong it makes Uemura look. He puts him over like a million bucks.
With his greatest weapon lost to him, O-Khan has to find other openings. The fashion in which he does so is nothing special, really. Going to the outside, using a chair, that kind of thing. He’s just doing typical heel things to get in control, finding opportunities where he can in order to shut Uemura down. It’s not like O-Khan is bad at heel control segments or anything, but I’ve come to realise over the last couple of years that being a face really is what he’s best at. And while the crowd is firmly pro-Uemura, there’s a solid contingent of O-Khan fans you can hear throughout the match, who want good things for their friendly neighbourhood Dominator.
O-Khan’s left arm gets damaged in this match, and like always, he sells it well, and more subtly than usual. If there’s an opportunity to not use his arm for something when he could be, he mostly takes it, at least until enough time passes and that early arm work sort of fades into memory. It’s not life-altering the way the arm selling was in the last match against Zack, but it’s still very solid.
Like all Uemura matches, the struggle over the Deadbolt Suplex is awesome. I love watching how people try and escape it. Whether it’s grabbing onto Uemura’s tights, headbutting him, or something else, it’s one of the best parts of his matches. O-Khan has a couple of bright ideas, pulling Uemura’s hair with the iron claw, and at one point just straight up biting Uemura. Uemura eventually does hit it though, as he too can learn. O-Khan pulls his hair, so he just headbutts O-Khan in the face repeatedly, breaking his grip and sending him over. But that’s not the end, as it’s a release variant, and Uemura wins with a crossbody. Whether that’s going to be a new finisher for him going forward in the long term will remain to be seen, but I suppose this is a good opportunity to talk about another of O-Khan’s quirks that I quite enjoy. He’s not afraid to lose to things that aren’t finishers or flash pins. It helps his matches and heightens the drama, making anything feel like it could be the end. His 2024 G1 had him lose to a discus lariat from Gabe Kidd (that has never beaten anybody before or since) and a Pumping Bomber from Shingo Takagi. It’s super cool that O-Khan allows that, and I think more people should follow his example.
All of this, and it’s a Korakuen Hall main event? Simply lovely. Could it have been cut down a bit? Sure. Would it be better if O-Khan was working less heel? Absolutely. It’s crazy to think about how much better they could do. Something more akin to O-Khan’s matches with Zack where they are more even on the mat would be delightful. I want to see these two wrestle again, on more even terms.
Of course, there are other great Great-O-Khan matches out there. It’s not like this is all there is.. But there’s no denying that tournaments are when he shows his best self, and that’s why I chose to highlight those particular matches.
But there are other matches worth mentioning at least in passing, like his 2023 G1 match with Will Ospreay, which isn’t amazing or anything but is a fun 11 minute sprint where O-Khan is more motivated than ever, busting out mist, a plancha, and a fucking moonsault. Speaking of sprints, he had a banger with Shingo Takagi late in that same year. 2023 was a very strong year for Great-O-Khan in general, also featuring a very fun Falls Count Anywhere match against Jon Moxley. His block matches against Zack, Takagi and Gabe Kidd in the 2024 G1 were all a hoot, and his match with KONOSUKE TAKESHITA in the 2025 G1 was fantastic, and was TAKESHITA’s best match of the entire year. In that same G1, his match against Narita was good, but nothing to write home about, however O-Khan’s selling of his leg was again incredible, and he milked more drama out of Narita’s House of Torture bullshit than anybody else in the block managed to.
I’ve talked about the matches themselves, but while O-Khan’s match quality is something I’ve come to accept as being somewhat inconsistent (a lot of that is down to booking him against certain people. He spent half of his 2025 in a dull, never-ending feud with El Phantasmo, and you can hardly blame the guy for not being able to get good matches out of the likes of Tanga Loa or 2024 Tetsuya Naito), I’ve never once come away from a match being disappointed by O-Khan’s performance in it. Apart from the odd multiman (especially since the heel turn) he never half-asses things and blatantly phones it in. If you target a limb, he will sell it. He’ll have your style of match, and do everything you want him to do. He’s never not ‘on’, and I’ve always loved how he always keeps his character front and center in his matches.
He’s also quietly a really solid tag guy. While his 2026 work thus far hasn’t been particularly inspiring (there’s an odd lethargy in O-Khan’s character right now that may be part of an angle or might be legitimate and based off his booking, I could only speculate), his efforts prior to that in the tag division have been quite good. Whether teaming with Jeff Cobb, HENARE, or Callum Newman, O-Khan puts in the work and it results in some fun matches. I like the matches against TMDK (Shane/Mikey) in 2024, and the match against TMDK (Zack/Oiwa) in the 2025 World Tag League.
Many of these matches have been widely enjoyed, with people complimentary of O-Khan’s work in them. And then, they forget. Like it never happened. It’s genuinely so odd. This isn’t the Goomba Fallacy at work, just to be clear. The English-speaking NJPW community is small enough that you can always get a good read on what the feeling is, and no matter how many great matches O-Khan has, or the good performances he has, the feeling never changes. After the 2024 G1, where O-Khan was being praised by western fans for his work on every show, I was expecting some kind of corner to be turned, but nope, back to square one, the great matches totally forgotten.
Wrestling fans are very hesitant to change their opinions when confronted by new information. Some people still think David Finlay is a bad worker despite the 2025 he just had. I think O-Khan is just another victim of that, along with some confirmation bias that sticks in their mind if he ever has a mediocre match. Some people made up their minds on him when he returned from excursion and no matter what he’s done since, he’s getting slandered on Dropkickd, Cagematch, Reddit, Twitter, you name it.
But if you know, you know. You’ve seen it, and you haven’t forgotten.
Great-O-Khan is great.
(Crossposted from my blog.)