An update has emerged on Mercedes Mone’s relationship with NJPW, ahead of her upcoming IWGP Women’s Championship bout.
The former ‘Sasha Banks’ will challenge for KAIRI’s gold at the February 18 Battle in the Valley event.
The match was announced after Mercedes confronted KAIRI at Wrestle Kingdom 17 on January 4.
Banks has been active on social media since then, sharing photos from training sessions with other Japanese wrestling stars.
Per Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there are some who don’t want Banks posting photos with stars from other companies, believing that she’s promoting rival companies more than her own.
Meltzer wrote:
“There were people talking because of the belief Mone has been promoting Sendai Girls and Tokyo Joshi Pro more than Stardom and the IWGP women’s title.
“She posted photos from the Sendai Girls dojo saying she wanted to wrestle women that work for that promotion and Tokyo Joshi Pro. The feeling is that now that she’s with Bushiroad she (should) be only promoting Bushiroad companies in Japan.
“When she was in Japan she didn’t go to any Stardom events nor go to the dojo. I don’t know that anyone expected her to, but talking about rival companies and going to the Sendai Girls dojo (it’s the company owned by Meiko Satomura) and it’s just Japanese business and it’s very likely nobody has ever explained that mentality to her.
“In fact I doubt they will, because the big numbers for the Tokyo Dome show, while largely attributed to Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay, she likely helped as well even though not advertised ahead of time as the word was out.”
Tickets for Battle in the Valley notably sold out while Mercedes Mone vs KAIRI was the only match announced for the card.
More matches have been confirmed for the US show, set to emanate from the San Jose Civic in California.
For more details on the event, click here.
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