NJPW's Never Championship To Be Vacated?
New Japan Pro Wrestling issued a statement in response to Karl Anderson's video explaining that he won't show up on Nov. 5th to face Hikuleo for his NEVER Openweight Championship. Let's explore this.
On June 12, 2022, at the Dominion NJPW PPV, Karl Anderson faced Tama Tonga for the NEVER Openweight Championship Title. Karl Anderson became the new NEVER Openweight Champion and for the last four months only defended it against Tanahashi at New Japan Burning in September. Karl Anderson retained.
Hikuleo kept making a convincing case to challenge Karl Anderson for the NEVER Openweight Championship. Eventually, the New Japan office decided to create a blockbuster of a title match for the November 5th Osaka show, Battle Autum.
New Japan fans rejoiced for this promoted match. This match was created before any other obligations Karl Anderson decided to take. According to a Sports Illustrated interview with Karl Anderson, he mentions that him and Gallows have a verbal agreement relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling. They aren’t locked down with a signed contract with New Japan. Essentially, if we were to believe Karl’s interview, he’s technically a free agent.
Then the unthinkable happened. On October 10, 2022, the season premiere of Monday Night Raw, The Good Brothers show up as backup for AJ Styles. AJ Styles is currently in a storyline with Judgement Day and on a weekly basis kept losing to the group due to the numbers game. That’s a tactic from Bullet Club, a club that was started by Finn Balor. All current wrestlers: Finn Balor, AJ Styles, and The Good Brothers were all in Bullet Club. Finn and AJ Styles were former leaders. Karl Anderson was a placeholder leader before the group decided on AJ Styles for the leadership role.
For the past weeks, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows has showed up on Monday Night Raw to have tag team matches and interactions with AJ Styles, Judgement Day, and Alpha Academy — for now. It feels like The Good Brothers aren’t even part of NJPW and Bullet Club anymore despite Karl Anderson holding the NEVER Openweight Championship title.
Bullet Club Leader Jay White gave The Good Brothers praise for showing up to Monday Night RAW — proclaiming and advocating that he’s still the catalyst of professional wrestling and that Bullet Club is going to take over the wrestling world globally.
The Good Brothers spent a couple of weeks at WWE which eventually formed a new match added for Crown Jewel. At Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia on November 5th it will be: The Good Brothers and AJ Styles (known as The O.C.) vs Judgment Day.
New Japan Pro Wrestling fans were furious about this and heavily called for Karl Anderson to be stripped of the NEVER Openweight Championship. The hardcore, loyal fans know of the championship situation but not the WWE fanbase that watches at home and attends the shows.
New Japan Pro Wrestling should be leaning into that aspect to get more eyes, more subscriptions. Sure, Naito warned us about this years ago, but this is 2022 and WWE is under a different regime at the helm. Triple H himself is a fan and has an appreciation for Japanese wrestling.
Business is business and companies should tread carefully. But this buzz is bigger than the buzz during the setup for AEWxNJPW which was one-sided. That buzz was more about fighting, toxicity, and snarky discussions when it came to AEWxNJPW. The buzz around a potential WWExNJPW partnership is about what-if and excitement because WWE had its doors closed for such a long time and now that WWE is slowly opening their own Forbidden Door, the amount of good exposure for NJPW will increase all aspects of business greatly.
So, while stripping Karl Anderson of the title may be a good thing and definitely is of tradition in pro wrestling, doing so will lose its story to build up the chase between Hikuleo and Karl Anderson. An easy strip will not help Hikuleo become that viable contender to a championship where the story is about the underdog prevailing.
Hikuleo has been proving himself ever since debuting in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2016 and then the pandemic hit in 2020 which stopped everyone’s momentum. By allowing an easy strip just to do another tournament and have Hikuleo win by fan decision (if that happens at all), it doesn’t help Hikuleo in the slightest. If there is a strip and a tournament happens to decide a new title holder, Karl Anderson will have the right to challenge again and say: he never lost it. And if that happens, NJPW will probably give him back the title.
NJPW then issued the following statement:
Thank you for supporting New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Early morning Japan time on October 20, NEVER Openweight Champion Karl Anderson posted a video on social media indicating that he would not be making his advertised commitment on November 5 in Osaka.
NJPW had announced Anderson’s match with Hikuleo for the NEVER Openweight Championship on October 4. Despite comments from Doc Gallows to the contrary in Anderson’s video, the booking was made through the appropriate channels, and with Anderson’s expressed approval.
However, after the match’s announcement, both Gallows and Anderson would appear on the October 10 edition of WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” broadcast. This led to WWE announcing a match featuring both men for their Saudi Arabia event on November 5, in direct conflict with Anderson’s prior commitment.
NJPW has for the past several days attempted to negotiate with Anderson, but has not been met with a response. Should Anderson decide to renege on his scheduled championship match, he will be required to vacate the NEVER Openweight Championship and return the title belt to NJPW immediately.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling holds its champions to the highest standards of professionalism, and sincerely apologises to fans for any disappointment or inconvenience caused by this matter.
New Japan will strip wrestlers of their championship(s) if agreements aren’t met, or situational circumstances occur. In the past, it was the right decision. However, this championship strip I disagree with. Let the story continue. Let the chase continue. Let’s make Hikuleo that badass who can dethrone Karl Anderson. Hikuleo’s looking strong during this NJPW Autumn tour by giving House of Torture members PTSD with his free chokeslam rides. Let’s talk with WWE to set up some NJPW debuts so their audience can become curious and check out NJPW.
President Ohbari’s frustration and anger is valid. And it does seem like NJPW got blindsided by this situation.
The other solution is to allow this story to develop for these reasons:
Hikuleo isn’t ready to just let Karl Anderson hand over a championship that he could easily win.
Having this chase creates necessary story that NJPW needs right now.
Hikuleo proved he can create a wonderful story with Fred Rosser, thus can create something special with Karl Anderson and the NEVER Openweight Championship.
NJPW fans always want new booking, new ideas, new stories, and new growth of the fandom — and I understand why no one wants Karl Anderson as champion — but the moment something fantastic drops in the lap of NJPW, fans want to revert back to their bubble. Wrestlers who were in NJPW are successful in all aspects of WWE. The term successful is very subjective but for the most part they are able to expand their skills and interests with WWE.
However, it is what it is. NJPW calls the shots with their championships. We’ll see what happens on November 5th.
Does Karl Anderson show up in Osaka as advertised on November 5th to put his NEVER Openweight Championship on the line against Hikuleo? Does Karl Anderson drop the championship to Hikuleo on that show?
Does Karl Anderson not arrive in Osaka as advertised on November 5 and instead show up with Doc Gallows and AJ Styles in the advertised WWE Saudi Arabia Crown Jewel Premium Live Event because the money bag is bigger than NJPW’s check?
Does NJPW fly Hikuleo out to Saudi Arabia so he can interfere in the match at Crown Jewel to continue the story?
This was the common method back in the territory days of pro wrestling.
November 5th is the date we all keep talking about. The date we all keep buzzing about. Capitalize on the buzz.
We’ll see everything unfold on November 5th.
