Kushida reportedly gone from WWE

Kushida is reportedly gone from WWE.

Sean Ross Sapp reported tonight that Kushida has left WWE after his contract expired.

Kushida signed with the WWE in 2019 and participated in that year’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament with former partner Alex Shelley. In April of 2021, he defeated Santos Escobar in a open challenge match to win the NXT Cruiserweight Championship. He lost the title to Roderick Strong in September.

After losing the Cruiserweight title, Kushida started to team with Ikemen Jiro, and together the two became known as Jacket Time. He was originally scheduled to face Von Wagner in a match on last week’s episode of NXT. However, he was taken out prior to the match backstage by Wagner. Instead, Wagner faced and defeated Kushida’s tag team partner Jiro.

Prior to his run in NJPW, Kushida was one of the top stars of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s junior heavyweight division, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title on six occasions.