WWE Target Wins NJPW Championship

WWE/NJPW

A wrestler previously targeted by WWE won a singles championship at Wednesday’s (May 3) NJPW Wrestling Dontaku event.

Several titles changed hands during the show, with Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii winning NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team gold, and David Finlay becoming the NEVER Openweight Champion.

In the first match of the main show, Hikuleo defeated KENTA to become the new NJPW STRONG Openweight Champion, winning the title originally introduced for NJPW’s US brand.

Previous reports indicated that WWE had shown interest in Hikuleo and his brother Tama Tonga, who both wrestle for NJPW.

Hikuleo notably defeated another major WWE target, former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White, in a Loser Leaves Japan match in February.

White has since signed with AEW, with Tony Khan officially announcing the Switchblade as All Elite on the April 5 edition of Dynamite.

For details on other free agents WWE has missed out on due to its reported ‘hiring freeze’ can be found right here.

For Triple H’s recent comments on changes made to increase WWE viewership, click here.

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• Target
• hikuleo
• NJPW
• wwe

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