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Dave Meltzer Believes WWE/NJPW Karl Anderson Situation Is An Angle

Karl Anderson Luke Gallows

Dave Meltzer thinks that both WWE and NJPW are ‘working the audience’ with the Karl Anderson saga.

Ever since Karl Anderson was announced for WWE Crown Jewel, a sort of online drama has emerged. NJPW has denied making public comments at first, and then rumors emerged that the company’s management was angry over the situation.

After that, NJPW announced that Karl Anderson’s title match was canceled, despite being scheduled before WWE booked him for Crown Jewel.

All of this has Dave Meltzer’s skepticism warning going off. It has reached the point that Meltzer thinks that all of this is nothing more than an angle to build up NJPW’s shows and the NEVER Openweight title scene.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer made the following comments:

“I think that at this point they’re working an angle and that they expect him to come and drop it [the Never Openweight Championship]. This may be another thing, you know, maybe WWE will allow him to come in and drop it…

I remember in many cases…the big one being when Alberto Del Rio came back at the last minute, and he was the AAA World Champion. I remember being told by AAA “ah, it’s okay. WWE agreed to let him come back to drop it and I mean, who knows what the real story is, because WWE immediately told me like, “hey, he never told us of any commitments.”

So I don’t know if he told them or they just pretended not to know but anyway, he never came back. So we’ll see what happens. They had to break their long standing tradition that if you announce a championship match, and the champion isn’t there, that he forfeits the championship, and that has been something, I mean, guys, who, you know, basically had flight connection problems or let’s say there’s a storm that delayed a flight or whatever like that, or somebody had a bad fever and couldn’t wrestle, they would strip them to the championship.

And here, Karl Anderson, is not there for a booking that has been announced, and it’s not even a last minute thing.”

Meltzer’s final point in the above quote notes a key decision in past situations like this that isn’t being discussed now. As Meltzer mentioned, previous cases of conflicts or ‘outside events’ interfering in a title defense would lead to the title being vacated.

The fact that NJPW hasn’t stripped Karl Anderson of the NEVER title so close to his scheduled title defense date has Meltzer believing that this is all some big marketing ploy.

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