Former WWE Superstar Sasha Banks, who negotiated her exit from the company months ago and who reached a deal with WWE this past summer where they agreed to release her as a free agent instead of freezing her contract, made an appearance at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 last January 4th and confronted current IWGP Women’s Champion KAIRI immediately following KAIRI’s successful title defense over Tam Nakano.
PWInsider.com previously reported that Naomi (real name Trinity Fatu) was scheduled to be in Japan as well and that the former WWE Women’s Tag Team Title partner of Sasha was coming on her own accord. It was also mentioned on the report that no official statement was made by NJPW about bringing Naomi in, but if she does appear in NJPW down the road, then it will mark her first-ever professional wrestling appearance since she and Sasha Banks walked out of the WWE last May.
Bryan Alvarez noted on a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Live that he believes Naomi will return to the WWE, but other than that he has no idea what is going on and he has no update about when Naomi could make her return.
This is what Bryan Alvarez said:
“They’re not going to New Japan, Naomi, and Bayley. Of course, there is no official information on Naomi, but my impression is she will be returning to WWE. Actually, you can report that my belief is that she will be returning to WWE because she will certainly be returning to WWE. I will just say that. Other than that, I don’t know what is going on.”
Naomi was set to make her WWE return with Sasha Banks a few months ago, but with Banks already out of the picture, it became a case of her needing to decide if she wanted to sit at home, return to WWE as a Singles competitor without Sasha or go somewhere else. The latest update on Naomi’s status with the WWE happened in December when it was revealed that her future is up in the air as she has yet to make a decision.
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for transcribing the quotes.
