Sasha Banks (Mercedes Varnado) is believed to be done with WWE after this month as she is slated to attend NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 in January and has additional dates booked with the promotion in 2023.
Voices Of Wrestling reports that NJPW has been working on a limited appearance deal for her that will have “a fee that would be significantly higher than what NJPW paid for Chris Jericho” and make her “the highest paid Bushiroad (parent company of NJPW and STARDOM) contracted wrestler.”
It’s unclear whether she has signed the deal yet. While speaking on today’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed the report.
“Voices of Wrestling said that it was a per-appearance deal at the highest price that Bushiroad has ever paid anyone, and they said it was more than Chris Jericho….Chris Jericho made $100,000 a shot when he was working for New Japan, and $100,000 a shot, she’s gonna have to….with Chris Jericho he was actually underpaid because of how much revenue he drove between New Japan World and ticket sales at the different shows and things like that.
I don’t see her driving that revenue, but I guess we’ll find out. The Tokyo Dome may be one thing, but for other shows, and a lot of them in the United States, I don’t see where she’s gonna drive $100,000 of extra revenue.”
Melter recapped the speculation that Banks will appear at Wrestle Kingdom 17 to set up a future match with KAIRI.
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