The Good Brothers have confirmed that they will not be heading to Tokyo, Japan on Saturday, November 5 for the NJPW Battle Autumn event as they will be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for WWE Crown Jewel instead.
Karl Anderson has been scheduled to defend his NEVER Openweight Title against Hikuleo on November 5 in Tokyo, and it was believed that the match would still happen, despite Anderson and Luke Gallows returning to WWE a few weeks back. The title match appeared to be in jeopardy earlier this week when WWE announced The O.C. (Anderson, Gallows, AJ Styles) vs. The Judgment Day (Finn Balor, Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio) for Crown Jewel, which is also scheduled for Saturday, November 5. It would be logistically impossible for Anderson to make both shows.
In an update, Gallows and Anderson posted a video statement to Anderson’s Instagram account, confirming that they will not be in Tokyo for NJPW.
Gallows noted that all of their bookings go through him, and NJPW announced the Hikuleo vs. Anderson match without running it through him, which resulted in the double booking. Gallows said they will not be coming to Japan for NJPW unless it’s on their time.
Anderson added that he loves what NJPW has done for The Good Brothers over the years, and he is the greatest NEVER Openweight Champion of all-time, but he’s not coming to Japan on November 5. Anderson said they will come on their own time, and he will inform NJPW when he’s coming to defend the title.
“Fatten that envelope, too,” Gallows said to end the video, referring to a payday. Anderson agreed.
Anderson captioned the video with, “ATTENTION:::::!!!!!!! OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM THE GREATEST #NEVEROPENWEIGHTCHAMPION ON THE FACT THAT @njpw1972 BOOKED ME WITHOUT GOING THRU MY BOOKING AGENT @the_biglg ……. SO WITH THAT SAID ….. We gotta little problem. Signed, @wwe ‘s #theOC ‘s Karl ‘Bright Lights The Machine Gun’ Anderson , the greatest #Neveropenweightchampion or all time. #wwe #njpw”
NJPW’s Rocky Romero, who wrestles and also deals with booking foreign talent for the promotion, responded in the comments section of Anderson’s video.
“Fuck you dude. Return the title,” Romero wrote.
There’s no word yet on how WWE feels about the situation with The Good Brothers and NJPW, but it was recently reported that NJPW officials were given a heads-up when Gallows and Anderson signed with WWE, and that there was still talk of Anderson working Wrestle Kingdom 17 on January 4, but that has not been confirmed. It was believed that WWE is allowing The Good Brothers to fulfill any dates they had with NJPW, even ones that they verbally committed to.
Anderson has been NEVER Openweight Champion since defeating Tama Tonga on June 12 at the Dominion event in Osaka, Japan.
You can see the full video from Anderson and Gallows below:
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