TJP Unsure If WWE Would Ever Want Him Back

TJP isn’t ruling out a WWE return, but he’s not convinced the company has a place for him.

The former Cruiserweight Champion, who competed in WWE from 2016 to 2019, recently spoke on Straight Talk Wrestling about whether he’d consider going back now that Triple H is running things.

“Yeah, I mean I would have always had that answer,” TJP said. “For whatever goes on or has been on with Vince, my experience with him as a boss, that’s all it was, was a good one. Same as my experience with Hunter. So that answer would be the same either way, as far as that goes.”

TJP acknowledged that WWE’s landscape is shifting, but he’s unsure if that benefits him. “It does seem like the landscape’s changing over there. I don’t know if that means that’s a good thing for me or not a good thing for me. Who knows? It could be a bad thing, could be the floodgates are so wide open now that it’s like, ‘Hey, we don’t need this guy.’”

He emphasized that he’s evolved as a performer and wouldn’t be interested in returning as the same character WWE fans last saw. “I am very different now. I would not be interested in going back and being the guy that left there. It’s been so long since I was that guy,” he explained. “That was only…everything I do, Puma, Su, everything, is an extension of who I am in real life. That’s only a fraction of who I was in real life.”

TJP also pointed out that WWE didn’t fully understand his character during his first run. “In a lot of ways, it was not at all who I was in real life because it was a product of a creative team that didn’t know me, unfortunately. But what I’m doing now is about as authentic to me as anything I’ve ever done.”

Ultimately, TJP isn’t sure WWE needs what he brings to the table now. “I feel like they don’t need what I am now. So I don’t know. If they were to say, ‘Hey, we want what you are now and who you are now, and we don’t want to obscure that art in any way, present it as you are,’ then yeah, I would love to. But I just feel like they don’t really…that’s not a player that they need on the roster, I don’t think. But would I love to do it? Yeah, I would love to do it.”

TJP has been thriving in NJPW as a member of United Empire, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship three times. Whether WWE sees a future for him remains to be seen.

Do you think WWE should bring TJP back? Would his current persona fit in today’s WWE? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.