NJPW: Mercedes Mone on KAIRI & Stardom, More on Suzuki-Gun Disbanding, Wrestle Kingdom 17 News

Mercedes Mone Comments on Her Upcoming Match with KAIRI & Working in Stardom

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 event earlier today in Tokyo, Japan featured the surprise NJPW debut of Mercedes Mone, former Sasha Banks in WWE. Following the IWGP Women’s Championship match at the event, Mone made her surprise appearance and confronted KAIRI setting up a match between the two at NJPW’s Battle in the Valley 2023 event next month.

Following her appearance, Mone spoke to the press backstage giving her thoughts about her upcoming match with KAIRI and working in Stardom.

“I’m interested in many wrestlers, but the reason I decided to fight KAIRI-san in the first place is because we have a ‘past.’ February 18th, San Jose, New Japan I think it will be the best match in Stardom history, so please look forward to it.

Mone also stated that her next goal after KAIRI would be to compete in matches against AZM and Miyu Yamashita in the future.

モネー「多くのレスラーにも興味があるわ。でも一番初めにKAIRIサンと闘うと決めたのは、私たちの間には“過去”があるからです。２月18日、サンノゼ、ニュージャパンとスターダムにおける史上最高の試合になると思うので、みんな楽しみにしてくださいね」

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— 新日本プロレスリング株式会社 (@njpw1972) January 4, 2023

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More on Suzuki-Gun Disbanding This Past December

As noted before, Minoru Suzuki announced during last month’s Super Junior Tag League and World Tag League 2022 Finals event that his Suzuki-Gun group would be disbanding at the end of 2022.

Voices of Wrestling reported that their sources stated that NJPW’s parent company Bushiroad made the decision for the group to disband due to contractual-related issues. It was reported that many of the group’s members were only working with handshake deals in NJPW. Bushiroad officials reportedly became “spooked” after the recent situation with Karl Anderson and pushed for NJPW officials to lock down all of their core talents to official contracts. Bushiroad reportedly was worried the most over a similar situation happening again and wanted to make sure that the group could not jump ship and work under the Suzuki-Gun name for another company.

In regards to the members of the group, it was reported that Yoshinobu Kanemaru was one of the few people who was under a contract with NJPW at one time but it is currently not known if that is still the case. Zack Sabre Jr. reportedly is currently believed to be under an actual contract while El Desperado, Taichi, Lance Archer, Minoru Suzuki, and TAKA Michinoku are not working under a contract. In regards to DOUKI, it was reported that his contract status is currently not known.

It was also reported that NJPW currently expects the bulk of the group to opt to work as freelancers but they are still interested in using them for tournaments and their bigger tours.

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NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 News & Notes

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 event earlier today in Tokyo, Japan featured WWE’s Karl Anderson and AEW’s Kenny Omega and FTR competing in several championship matches. These matches resulted in Anderson losing his NEVER Openweight Championship to Tama Tonga, Omega defeating Will Ospreay for his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship, and FTR losing their IWGP Tag Team Championship to Bishamon (YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto).

During the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Four-way match, it was announced that Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Kongo group had arrived uninvited backstage and confronted Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI, and Shingo Takagi teasing a future match between the two groups. This storyline incident took place during Naito and Los Ingobernables de Japon’s post-match press conference following Keiji Muto’s final match in NJPW.

Prior to the start of Wrestle Kingdom’s main show, NJPW announced that a new film based on the late Antonio Inoki is currently in production. No other details regarding this upcoming film was given.