Karl Anderson Will Not Defend NEVER Openweight Title Due To WWE Scheduling Conflict

Karl Anderson returned to WWE, but he didn’t close everything up outside of Vince McMahon’s former company first. He is still the NEVER Openweight Champion in NJPW, but a scheduled title defense ran into one of WWE’s biggest shows.

The OC is set to wrestle at November 5th’s Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia against The Judgement Day, but Anderson was already booked. He was slated to defend the NEVER Openweight Title against Hikuleo at NJPW Battle Autumn on the same day.

Now, Karl Anderson has addressed this situation via a viral video. It seems that he’s not working the NJPW event now, but that won’t stop them from advertising him for the show.

“New Japan Pro-Wrestling, I love what you’ve done for the Good Brothers through these years. I am the greatest NEVER Openweight Champion of all time. I only work when the lights are bright. November 5, we’re not coming. We’ll come on our time. The Machine Gun will tell you when I’m coming to defend my championship.”

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We’ll have to see how this plays out. It is interesting when WWE signs anyone off the indies, especially when they hold a title elsewhere. It appears that WWE isn’t going to loan out the Machine Gun to NJPW for that match, especially since he’s already booked to wrestle in Saudi Arabia.