Since the initial post yesterday, some more details have come out with regards to the huge news that various wrestlers have given notice to New Japan Pro Wrestling and appear to be WWE-bound. As noted yesterday, the story first broke publicly via a paywalled posting to former indie promoter and WWE writer Court Bauer’s podcast network, MLW Radio, where Bauer announced that Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, and two or three of Styles’ Bullet Club stablemates had given notice to the company. Being that the Bullet Club’s Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, and Rocky Romero have a podcast on MLW Radio, they seemed like the obvious candidates.
The first update came from Wrestling Observer Radio behind the paywall at F4WOnline.com, with some additional details coming on last night’s traditional weekly post-Raw show. On the shows, here are some of the key details laid out by Dave Meltzer:
The wrestlers who gave notice are Nakamura, Styles, Anderson, and Gallows, and yes, they’re seemingly WWE-bound, though nobody has signed yet. All but Styles, who had no contract, were working on NJPW’s traditional one year deals, which always expire at the end of January. This is not the first exodus of this kind, as Hiroshi Hase helped engineer Keiji Mutoh, Satoshi Kojima, and Kendo Ka Shin jumping to AJPW in 2002 when their NJPW deals were up. Styles had already been removed from ROH advertising and stopped accepting new indie bookings before Wrestle Kingdom, so it was kind of known within wrestling that he was done. He was seemingly written out of storylines at New Year Dash (full spoilers here) earlier today, with Mike Johnson at PWInsider confirming it was his last NJPW booking.
Meltzer made it clear that Nakamura won’t be leaving immediately, instead sticking around for a few months. He shot an angle setting up a new program for his IWGP Intercontinental Championship today at New Year Dash (again, the full spoiler details are here) so at the very least, it looks like he’ll see that through. There’s also the chance that NJPW could make him an offer to stay.
Meltzer made a point of saying that it looks like Styles and Nakamura aren’t earmarked for NXT, in part because of the money that they have to be paying to get them. Nakamura was believed to be making somewhere from a quarter to half a million dollars U.S. each year and Styles had a full calendar of well-paying indie dates (where his road expenses were also covered by promoters, unlike in WWE) on top of his NJPW tours. Whether making that kind of financial commitment means anything as far as WWE’s main shows changing stylistically is harder to tall. Also, as pointed out by Mike Johnson at PWInsider yesterday (before Meltzer’s confirmation that WWE was the destination of the wrestlers), Nakamura also needs to have a work visa secured by WWE so he can wrestle here legally, and that will take time.
Meltzer noted that rumors of Anderson leaving had been well known for a while (he’s right) but didn’t say much more about he and Gallows. While it was speculative on his part, he did throw out the idea of Anderson and Gallows being earmarked for a “Balor Club” heel stable, though that’s not necessarily the most wild guess. As for Gallows’ WrestleMerica indie promotion out of Barnesville, Georgia, which has become increasingly successful, there’s been no word on its status yet. Being that his wife, Kimberly Davis (Amber O’Neal/Amber Gallows/The Bullet Babe) is a wrestler, one would think she could take over the promotion unless it would still be seen as a political issue with WWE.
