Karl Anderson looks back on an unprecedented time.
Anderson won the NEVER Openweight Championship at NJPW Dominion in June 2022. He and Luke Gallows then returned to WWE on the October 10th episode of WWE Raw. WWE and NJPW reached an agreement that would let Anderson work dates around his WWE schedule. Anderson was double-booked for NJPW Battle Autumn and WWE Crown Jewel, so he had to miss a scheduled title defense. He then faced Hikuleo at NJPW's December 14th event and later defended the title at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17, where Tama Tonga beat him to win the gold.
Speaking on his Talk'n Shop podcast, Karl Anderson looked back on this chapter of his career. He also detailed how his return to WWE came about.
“The NEVER Openweight Champion as a WWE contracted superstar. Give me a break. You’ll never see it again, ever. I think I won the title around July, possibly August, from Tara [Tonga]. Maybe before that, maybe in May, I really can’t remember. People forget too, this was during COVID, when people weren’t even allowed to cheer, especially in Japan. They were still taking the COVID restrictions very, very seriously. I’d landed in Japan and tested positive for COVID, so I got put into a Japanese government hotel for eight nights, got out, had three nights, had three days free, and then went and wrestled Tana. I was so blown up, I could barely breathe at the end of that. I was the NEVER Openweight Champion since, let’s just say July of 2022, I defended it against Tanahashi in let’s just say maybe Tokyo, I’m not sure where. So right before then, our IMPACT contract had ran out in July, so I won the NEVER Openweight Championship in June of 2022. Our IMPACT contract was finished in July of 2022. We were offered another two-year deal with IMPACT. We decided against that because it didn’t work out the dates that we wanted. We wanted to be able to hit all of the main big shows for New Japan. We kind of wanted to be more focused on New Japan Pro-Wrestling. That was exactly what we wanted to do. If we would have signed that deal with IMPACT, they wanted us to make sure we were in the states for all of the big IMPACT pay-per-views, and it was something we couldn’t promise. So we told IMPACT, let’s just hold off on anything serious until January. So we’ll do New Japan Pro-Wrestling as hard as we can all the way to January of 2023. So our IMPACT deal runs out in July. The very last day of IMPACT, at our IMPACT TV tapings, we get a text message from Triple H. ‘Hey, are you guys free for a chat anytime soon?’ That was out of nowhere. Of course, we’d talked with AJ [Styles] here and there about what days, when we were free, when we weren’t free. But we didn’t know all the inner workings of WWE, and it wasn’t something on our bingo card at all, for us to even think about because we thought we were just gonna go do full-blown New Japan stuff and just stay with New Japan stuff. Then we the text from Triple H, and we said, well, do you want to talk tonight or tomorrow when we get home? We’re at our very last TV taping today. Hunter said, ‘Yeah, let’s just chat tomorrow when you guys get home, and you’re good.’ We finished up our match with the Motor City Machine Guns, flew home. The next day, Hunter set up a group FaceTime, and we talked. It was like, ‘Are you guys free?’ Yeah, well, we are free. We didn’t have a contract with New Japan. We didn’t have verbal dates St up. I knew that I was gonna take this NEVER Openweight Championship all the way to the Tokyo Dome and drop it to Tama. But certain dates were not put in place. Nothing was signed, nothing was, ‘Hey, you’re gonna do this or this.’ There was no contract written up, nothing at all. It was all verbal and all handshake. So Hunter asked, ‘When are you free?’ We were like, well, we’re free now, but I have this [title]. He goes, ‘Well, let’s just figure that out, but we’d love to have you guys back now,'" Anderson said.
Anderson then noted that they all realized that October 10th worked for their WWE return. He said that he talked to Rocky Romero, and both sides worked it out. Anderson also brought up how he got a lot of backlash because people thought he was holding NJPW up.
"So I think we had to go do an England tour really quick for New Japan, whatever they call the New Japan England stuff. We had one more week of New Japan something, and then we were free October 10th, and that’s how it all got signed up. I called Rocky [Romero] right away, I was like, dude, I need you to talk to you about this. When Hunter asked us what day we were free and we all figured out that October 10th was okay, and it was gonna all be okay, no problem, I could keep the title, I would do this date, do a date in November, and then do a date in January, and everything was verbally agreed upon, and it was no problem at all. It turned into this insane thing online that I was holding up New Japan for the title and all that. That’s when I realized that fans take things one way. I think what was so silly about all that was, I got some intense messages and some really intense messages about what a piece of crap I am. It was funny because it led into how big heels and how hot we really were at that time. I think what’s funny too is that people thought that it was my decision, that I was running both of these companies. Don’t you think if I had any kind of say, I’d be getting a little more of a push in WWE, guys? I’d be a little more thought of in creative," Anderson said.
Anderson noted that the mix-up with the double booking was simply a miscommunication. He also said that if NJPW was actually upset with him, they likely would have stripped him of the title, as he didn't own the belt anyway.
"I think what happened is New Japan announced a date without talking [to me], and that was an actual miscommunication because things do get lost in translation sometimes. I think Rocky, who is the in-between guy, something got mixed up to where New Japan just announced this date, that I was gonna make this date, but this was the date that I had to go to Saudi Arabia for WWE. It was like, I can’t do this date, guys, crap. They changed it, they made me do a promo, and I said it wasn’t coming. I think if you look back in history, there were times where if you miss a championship match in New Japan history, they strip you. If New Japan was really hot at me, they would have stripped me of the title, which is a title I don’t really own anyway because it’s not really mine. I was told I was allowed to win it. Why do I gotta explain these things to grown adults?" Anderson said.
Anderson went on to reflect on competing in a singles match at the Tokyo Dome and made it clear that it meant a lot to him, as he had previously had tag team matches at Wrestle Kingdom.
Anderson has been sidelined due to a torn rotator cuff and a torn labrum since November, and he recently provided an update. Check out his comments here.
The OC previously discussed their decision to return to WWE. Click here to see what they had to say.
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