“See you down the road,” Karl Anderson shows his gratitude towards NJPW after Wrestle Kingdom 17

Karl Anderson lost his NEVER Openweight Championship to Tama Tonga this past week at NJPW’s biggest show, Wrestle Kingdom 17. He held that title for nearly 7 months, winning it against the same opponent in June at Osaka. Anderson is still under contract with WWE, which made this match more appealing and interesting for the fans. Something like this would have been impossible in WWE under the reign of Vince McMahon just a year ago.

Now it seems like it might’ve been Anderson’s last appearance in the Japanese promotion for quite some time. After the match, the former Bullet Club member thanked his opponent Tama Tonga, NJPW, and Japanese fans via Twitter. He wrote, “Thank You Tama Tonga, thank you NJPW. Few will understand the love and admiration I have for the country, fans and the people of Japan. Thank you … See you down the road. Next stop:  Birmingham, Alabama for WWE Monday Night Raw, January 9.”

This year was the first time a WWE-contracted talent competed at Wrestle Kingdom. We also saw Mercedes Mone, former Sasha Banks make her debut in the same show as her WWE contract expired in 2022. Whether this relationship between WWE and NJPW will grow or not remains to be seen but the event did create a lot of buzz due to stars from other promotions, including Kenny Omega making an appearance at the show. However, from his tweet, it seems like it might’ve been the last appearance of Karl Anderson in the Japanese promotion.

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Karl Anderson’s journey to his WWE return

Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson were released from WWE in April 2020 as part of the “budget cuts” in the middle of the pandemic. Later on, in the same year, they signed a two-year contract with Impact. However, this was not an exclusive deal like they had in WWE. In the same period, they made sporadic appearances at AEW and NJPW. Anderson won the NEVER Openweight title at Dominion 6.12 (2022) followed by an Impact tag title win the following week with his fellow Good Brother. As their Impact contract came to an end in August 2022, they dropped the titles to Honor No More (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett).

The former Raw Tag Team Champions shocked everyone when they made their return to WWE on the October 10th episode of Monday Night Raw. They came out to help their former Bullet Club leader AJ Styles against Judgment Day. This was an interesting development as Karl Anderson was still the NEVER Openweight champion and was never stripped of the title by NJPW. His only appearance in New Japan after that was at Wrestle Kingdom 17 where he finally lost to Tama Tonga.

Triple H has shown a more open mind when it comes to working with other wrestling promotions. This is all leading up to his imminent goal of global localization of NXT into various parts of the world. Earlier in the month, Shinsuke Nakamura also wrestled a match against Great Muta at NOAH’s New Year event. Amidst the reports of Vince returning to power, the future for more such matches and events seems unlikely.

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