Mercedes Mone (Sasha Banks) made her debut for New Japan Pro Wrestling at Wrestle Kingdom 17 on January 4, 2023.
She then went on to defeat KAIRI for the IWGP Women’s Championship at Battle in the Valley in February, before later dropping the title to Mayu Iwatani.
Mercedes was set to become the inaugural NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion at NJPW Resurgence in May, before she suffered an injury and an audible was called, with Willow Nightingale going on to win the title.
Mercedes has yet to return to action following her injury, and it was recently reported that there are currently no plans for her to return to NJPW or Stardom, and that she has no dates booked for either promotion.
NJPW’s Rocky Romero spoke to WrestlePurists, where he gave the latest on her status.
He said:
“I honestly don’t have an update right now. I hope that I’ll be talking to her agent and her maybe soon-ish, but I honestly don’t have any update about anything. The last thing I had heard was that she was recovering well and basically, they were going to let me know or reach out when she was getting close to a comeback.”
When speaking on the reports that there were no dates slated for her return, Rocky noted that there is still communications between the two sides, but he doesn’t know what she wants to do when she gets back.
He added:
“There’s definitely still communication. Obviously, I don’t know what she’s going to want to do when she comes back for sure. Especially coming back from a serious injury that kind of messed her up, you know, maybe messed up her timeframe of what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it. So, I really couldn’t speak for her, I don’t think it would be fair.
“I think that she thoroughly enjoyed her time in New Japan and New Japan loved working with her and obviously would love to continue to work with her, but I think everybody’s pretty happy with the work that we’ve done.”
Mercedes was recently asked about the possibility of her showing up at AEW Full Gear is Los Angeles next weekend, which you can see here.
Current NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion Giulia reportedly has major interest from WWE, with the latest on that situation available here.
transcription via Fightful
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