STARDOM president Taro Okada recently spoke with Encount on a number of topics including what led to the termination of former company founder Rossy Ogawa.
Okada said, “It was more complicated and serious than I expected. Considering sales, I felt that the organization was unstable. Like a venture company aiming for sales of 120 million 200 million yen, we managed to do everything with a lunch box. There were a lot of young staff, so I thought it would take some time to build an organization, but from a management standpoint, if you put in the time and money, you can get things done in a year. I had interviews with all the players in January and December, and what I found out during those meetings was that things related to professional wrestling were left to the players and Mr. Ogawa, but there were some important points here and there. That led to dissatisfaction and complaints among the players. Then, we learned from several players that they were planning to leave Stardom and form a new organization.”
On the feeling that he had to terminate Ogawa:
“One player said, ‘If Mr. Ogawa quits, I will follow him.’ There was a story that said, ‘Then, if you quit quitting, you won’t quit!’ Ad so we first looked for ways to work together (with Mr. Ogawa). However, when I first met Mr. Ogawa, he told me that he was quitting. At that time, I thought it was a matter of physical strength. Then, in January of this year, I heard that Mr. Ogawa was talking to many players who were going independent. If the company splits up like this, it would become an unstable business as a subsidiary of a listed company. If that happens, the company may downsize its business or separate from the group. While I was in a contract where I was paid to do work for Stardom, I was doing things that caused damage, so I had no choice but to stop this chain of events, so I made the decision to terminate my contract.”
