Michael Oku Shares How Meltzer’s Ranking Affected His Career

In a recent Fightful interview, Michael Oku shared some details on how his career trajectory changed after his match last year with Will Ospreay. According to Oku, having Dave Meltzer give the bout a five-star rank tangibly altered his standing in the industry, garnering him attention from promoters directly. You can find some highlights from Oku and watch the full interview below.

On the significance of getting a high rating from someone like Meltzer: “Oh, it 100% matters. There’s a lot of people putting in their opinions about whether his star ratings matter. I can nearly tell you that they objectively matter. Because I could feel the change in my career from when the match happened to people talking and getting loads of buzz about it to then when he watched it and then gave it the five stars to then how many different promoters were then messaging me after I got that star. So no matter what people want to say, people hold his opinion in high regard. So as a young wrestler, one that’s not decades in the game that’s already a millionaire or whatever, to get that recognition from someone who has such a wide reach, did me a lot of favors, 100%.”

On his own discovery of Wrestling Observer: “I used to listen to his stuff and I’d always peek and see what he’s saying in terms of news outlets. When I was younger and starting to learn about the inner workings of wrestling, there was a website called NoDQ.com. They’re still there. That’s where I’d get my news. I’d be reading the TNA section, ‘Oh, someone isn’t liked.’ But then I notice that it’d always say ‘source’ on the bottom and say like F4WOnline. I was like, ‘Well, I learned in school, you go to the source,’ right? The primary source. Well, what’s all this second hand thing? So that’s when I found out about him and I found out about the ratings and then the newsletters and all the awards that happened. There are wrestlers that are subscribed to, but they just keep it secret because they don’t want to be judged. There’s are so many that not only know him or are subscribed, but are friends with him. It’s just a funny thing that you still have to keep hush-hush. That’s how I first learned about him. So my friend would send me a thing where like, ‘Oh, hey, here’s a clip of a podcast of him talking about you for 10 minutes.’ ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ So it’s a cool thing. Then I met him and it’s just cool. It’s just funny.”