WWE is bringing back a former star who has been away from the company for only a year officially while she has been off television for a few years.
As previously reported, KAIRI, formerly known as Kairi Sane, is making her return to the company. She signed with WWE in 2017, where she found success in NXT and on the main roster. She is a former NXT Women’s Champion and former Women’s Tag Team Champion with Asuka.
KAIRI returned to Japan in July 2020 and worked for WWE as an ambassador until her contract expired in February 2022. Since then, she had been working for NJPW/STARDOM until this year.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted KAIRI is expected to return to WWE sometime in November and her NJPW/STARDOM departure may have something to do with the parent company of the promotions cutting back on costs.
Yeah, maybe November. She’s got two more dates in Japan. I think that she’s scheduled for. She’s coming back. As far as that goes, there is something to that because, you know, she left because she wanted to return to Japan. and then when her contract was up, she started working at stardom and it was kind of like, you know, she was gonna be the big international star and knew Japan was gonna use her, you know, to come to the United States and things like that. And I think that what ended up happening is then they signed Mercedes [Mone]. She ended up getting hurt, but they signed Mercedes to kind of take that spot. And, for KAIRI, I mean, obviously when Bushiroad took over and bought STARDOM, there was a lot of hope of, you know, the idea of like, you know, we’re gonna, you know, the talent will get paid more. The Bushiroad wrestling side, which is more due to New Japan than STARDOM, has not been nearly as profitable as they expected it to be. Because New Japan business is down like this. G1 is like the prime example of it.”
Meltzer later added, “She was going to work big shows and, at a certain price probably. There we go. She’s going back to WWE, so there’s your answer.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit F4WOnline.com with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. An F4WOnline.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
