After more than three years away, Kushida is back in NJPW — and says he’s home for good.
Kushida made a dramatic return at the end of today’s New Japan Road show at Korakuen Hall, arriving after Taiji Ishimori defeated Hiromu Takahashi to retain his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. Responding to Ishimori’s assertion that there were no challengers left in the division, Kushida made it clear he’s already got designs on the title, though the champ felt he needed to prove himself first.
Saying later that he had “literally just signed my NJPW contract,” Kushida also revealed that his intention was “to spend the rest of my wrestling life in NJPW,” That’s significant since the 39-year-old wrestler left NJPW in the spring of 2019 to compete in WWE’s NXT brand. His arrival was treated like a big deal by WWE — not least because it allowed him to keep his real name — and he experienced some success, winning the NXT Cruiserweight Championship.
Still, the sentiment among a good portion of wrestling fans was that Kushida never reached his full potential in NXT, and his departure seemed inevitable once that brand was revamped into NXT 2.0 with a greater focus on developing young talent. Most of Kushida’s last few months under WWE contract were spent in tag team matches, often on the losing end, and his final NXT match was taped on March 22.
Kushida does have unfinished business with Ishimori as well, as the last time he competed for a championship in NJPW was when he lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship to the Bullet Club wrestler at Wrestle Kingdom 13. That show in January 2019 now feels like a lifetime ago, but it should be interesting to see how quickly Kushida reacclimates himself to the NJPW scene, and if he can get back in the title hunt as quickly as he hopes.