WWE: NJPW Reportedly Considered AJ Styles for Wrestle Kingdom 17, AAA & WWE Update, Kofi Kingston

WWE

Jan 22, 2023

NJPW Reportedly Considered Idea for AJ Styles to Make Appearance at Wrestle Kingdom 17

As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling and WWE agreed to a deal this past December allowing Karl Anderson to defend his then NEVER Openweight Championship at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 event earlier this month. This deal resolved a dispute between Anderson and NJPW over booking issues caused by Anderson’s signing with WWE this past October.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that the reason why Luke Gallows did not accompany Anderson to the ring for his NEVER Openweight Championship match at the event was due to NJPW officials were not interested in bringing over Gallows for their event.

It was also reported that NJPW officials did have talks at one point over the idea of AJ Styles making an appearance at their Wrestle Kingdom 17 event. Styles reportedly was interested in the idea but his ankle injury shortly before the event made this potential plan a moot point in the end.

WWE & AAA Potential Future Partnership Status Update

As noted before, Lucha Libre AAA is currently rumored to be interested in forming a potential partnership with WWE in the future.

WrestlingInc.com held a recent interview with AAA head booker Konnan. One of the topics discussed included Konnan confirmed that the rumors of AAA being interested in a potential partnership with WWE are true but no talks have been held yet over the idea.

“No. I’ve never talked to Hunter personally, but through other channels. There’s been an interest in doing something. Now, this is very telling. For around, I’m not kidding, 15 years plus, I would ask Rey [Mysterio], almost like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football every year, I would ask Rey to ask Vince [McMahon] if he could send a promo for our TripleMania show, or show up. And the answer was always no. And this last year, which was a special year, 30 years, and I was getting an award in Tijuana, the promotion that discovered Rey in the city that he first trained, in the city where he lives and represents, for the guy that’s his best friend, and the answer was still no. And I was like, ‘Motherf***er, how does this, in any way, hurt you?”

Konnan also gave his thoughts on WWE’s changes to their stance against working with other companies following Paul “Triple H” Levesque taking over creative power in the company.

“He only asked [Triple H] once. [He] said yes. He sent the video to open up TripleMania this year, and bro, it was a humongous pop.”

Konnan also gave his thoughts about Dragon Lee’s recent signing with WWE.

“The second thing, Hunter sent a Spanish digital crew and film cameras to record when Dragon Lee, which is Rush’s brother, who’s a hell of a talent, he’s going to kill it in ‘NXT’. When Dragon Lee announced that he was going to WWE, that had never been done before. Hunter gets it, he gets that you got to play with others and have relationships, where Vince was like an island unto himself and didn’t play well with others.”

Kofi Kingston Comments on Future of His Wrestling Career.

A recent episode of the Cheap Heat podcast had Kofi Kingston as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Kingston’s thoughts on the future of his wrestling career.

“I don’t know. I have a couple of years left on my contract. I never say, ‘In two years I’m going to be done.’ We always get on Mark Henry about this because he said he was going to retire for 12 years. ‘I’m gonna be done after this year,’ and all of a sudden he comes out in his stuff, ‘Vince (McMahon) told me that they needed me, so I signed for another five years.’ Mark, come on man, you ain’t never retiring! We get on him about that. This industry is so unique and so fun and such a short period of time in our lives, and I know it’s very hard to walk away. What a lot of people miss about it, and from being on the roster and what I’ve been told, they miss the camaraderie in the locker room. Even now, I see the transition happening where myself, Dolph (Ziggler), Miz, Randy (Orton), we’re kind of the elder statesmen. Everyone else has gone through NXT, people who I didn’t come up with, so you see the natural transition happening, but the camaraderie in the locker room, it’s still there. Once that’s gone, you don’t really get it back. I’ve always said, as long as I’m having fun, I don’t want to be the guy who comes to work every day and is complaining about being there, ‘I’m not happy with a storyline, I’m pissed off about this.’ This job is so amazing that you should be feeling elated about it every single day. Obviously, there are ups and downs, we all know that, but overall, you shouldn’t be coming to work and having it weigh on yourself and you take it home and you’re mad about what’s going on at work and now the quality of your life isn’t what it should be.”

Kingston also gave his thoughts on the future of New Day as a group.

“I told them this, and they’re starting to come around, once you get past 30, it’s all the same age bracket. Are they younger than me or are we all the same age? They might even be older than me. Woods has been working has been working in the industry for a very long time. He’s got like 27 years in the business. He’s the real veteran of the group. Am I older than him or not? Who is to say? When it’s all said and done, we definitely want to continue to work with each other on an entertainment platform, whatever that looks like, we’re figuring that out. We take it one day at a time. We’ll see what happened when the contract expires and we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com