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WWE Interested In Bringing Back Jonah

Jonah NJPW

Jonah, formerly known as Bronson Reed, may end up going back to that former name sometime soon.

The 6-foot, 330-pound star had a two-year stint in NXT before being released in August 2021. After that, he signed with New Japan and wrestled for the company’s NJPW Strong US brand. By most accounts Jonah improved by leaps and bounds while on Strong; so much so that he was brought in to wrestle in this year’s G1 Climax tournament. And it was during that tournament that he had what many consider his career-best match in a one-on-one contest against Kazuchika Okada.

Jonah and Okada had another match more recently at Declaration of Power. That match saw both Okada beat Jonah to avenge his G1 loss and a post-match handshake that, according to the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, had some larger implications:

“Jonah has had offers to come back to WWE. After he lost to Okada, the two shook hands, almost like this was the end of their rivalry. However, Jonah in his post-match interview said that they have to do a third match, said he was okay with the loss because Okada is the best wrestler in the world, noted that they were 1-1.”

Should a tie-breaker match be announced between Okada and Jonah, it isn’t likely to take place until well into the new year. Okada is already preoccupied for NJPW’s next show, Rumble on 44th Street, which takes place on October 28th. On that show, Okada will be competing in a tag match against his opponent at Wrestle Kingdom 17, Jay White.

This will begin the long “Road To” tour that will cover most of November and parts of December, with some dates filled in with NJPW’s annual tag tournament. In other words, Okada won’t have time to wrestle Jonah until New Year’s Dash on January 5th or The New Beginning in late January/early February at the earliest.

That doesn’t mean that Jonah can’t return to WWE in the meantime. A possible precedent has been made with Karl Anderson’s recent return. Anderson is the defending NEVER Openweight Champion and he still hasn’t been stripped of that title, several days after his return. If WWE (under Triple H) allows Anderson to wrestle one more date for New Japan while under a WWE contract, then a similar possibility could come up for Jonah (or Bronson Reed, depending on which name WWE gives him) to wrestle Okada for one last time.