Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, better known as The Good Brothers, made their surprise return to the WWE on this week’s Monday Night Raw and reunited with AJ Styles as The OC. The two former tag team champions were released by the company back in April 2020 over budget cuts and spent the next two years working in Impact Wrestling, AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling along with various independent promotions. News that their contracts with Impact were expiring emerged a few months ago, but on Monday it was reported that the two were actually heading back to WWE.
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Sean Ross Sapp had an update regarding their return on Fightful Select, writing, “Anderson and Gallows had indicated to Fightful that WWE had interest in them as early as this summer, when they were still under IMPACT Wrestling deals. The two were very transparent about the interest towards the end of their IMPACT wrestling contracts, which ended up going a month longer than expected.”
But there’s still a big question — what about their run with New Japan. The pair recently re-established their connection with the rest of Bullet Club and Anderson still currently holds the NEVER Openweight Championship, successfully defending the title against Hiroshi Tanahashi at the Burning Spirit event on Sept. 25. Sapp didn’t have any updates in his report, only adding that it was believed the pair were sticking around with the promotion through Wrestle Kingdom next January.
New Japan’s official website shed some light on the situation on Tuesday. While confirming the lineup for the upcoming Battle Autumn event on Nov. 5 in Osaka, the company confirmed Anderson will still defend his title at the show against Hikuleo.
“Also already announced for November 5, Karl Anderson will defend the NEVER Openweight Championship gold against Hikuleo,” the announcement read. “The Machine Gun will go wherever the bright lights will lead him, and that certainly rings true when it comes to November’s big Osaka event. Might it also be true of Wrestle Kingdom and a NEVER Championship defence on the grandest stage? Or will Hikuleo seize the moment and his first career championship?”
This is an incredibly rare situation for WWE. In the past, talent that signs a contract to join the company is given the chance to fulfill any bookings that were previously agreed upon. But those are usually taken care of before that wrestler debuts on WWE TV. Stay tuned for more updates on the two as they become available.
