Backstage Tension Revealed Over WWE Signing Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
The WWE returns of Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows led to some tension with NJPW as revealed by a key figure that dealt with the transition.
Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows returned to WWE after two years away when they came to the aid of AJ Styles on the October 10th episode of Raw. It reunited Styles with his buddies to reform The OC group. They have added “Michin” Mia Yim to the group since then.
For the past four months, Anderson & Gallows weren’t on television much because AJ Styles was out of action with a broken ankle. The group returned together last week during the WWE Draft and they are now a part of Smackdown.
After their WWE run ended, Anderson & Gallows worked for Impact Wrestling for two years, they also wrestled in NJPW often and even appeared on AEW television as well. Anderson was the IWPG NEVER Openweight Champion in NJPW when he signed his WWE deal, which led to questions about what would happen.
At Wrestle Kingdom 17 in January, Tama Tonga ended Anderson’s 206-day reign as the Never Openweight Champion.
Rocky Romero is a current NJPW wrestler that also is an office rep that makes deals for the company. Recently on the Comedy Store Wrestling Podcast, Rocky explained there was a lot of tension.
“Yeah, (there was) definitely a lot of tension. Knowing where everybody stood, and obviously trying to stay true to our partners (at) AEW. Obviously, their major competitor is WWE, right?”
“So I’m trying to navigate the waters, and stay neutral in some position, also knowing it was important to get the Good Brothers, especially Karl Anderson, back to New Japan so he could defend the title…It was super stressful in the beginning.”
“I had some conversations with some people in WWE I’d never had (talks with) before, some very important people, to get that done. And I gotta say, Triple H was super cool in the whole situation.”
When talking about Anderson dropping the title to Tonga, Romero mentioned that it didn’t have to happen that way and credited WWE’s Chief Content Officer Triple H for allowing it to happen.
“He didn’t have to do that, and I don’t think the Good Brothers had anything in writing that they necessarily had to do that.”
“I think Triple H, just kinda respecting what New Japan is and having respect for the culture, and having respect for the wrestling business in general, was really open to working it out.”