{"id":160112,"date":"2026-04-24T12:45:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=160112"},"modified":"2026-04-24T12:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:47:06","slug":"former-iwgp-heavyweight-champion-evil-reportedly-signs-with-wwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/04\/24\/former-iwgp-heavyweight-champion-evil-reportedly-signs-with-wwe\/","title":{"rendered":"Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL Reportedly Signs with WWE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After months of speculation, former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL has reportedly signed with WWE. Several sources in Japan have confirmed that <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwinsider.com\/article\/207273\/exclusive-wwe-signs-former-iwgp-heavyweight-champion.html?p=1\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EVIL has agreed to a deal with WWE<\/a><\/span>. The former <span>HOUSE OF TORTURE<\/span> leader is expected to work under a new moniker when he begins his tenure at the American promotion.<\/p>\n<p>According to other sources, EVIL had been <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/fightful\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">considering his options ahead of the expiry of his final contract in NJPW<\/a><\/span>. WWE or other Japanese promotions always looked the likely destination, with EVIL being seen backstage at some WWE events earlier this year. AEW was never considered a possible landing spot for EVIL, even with his strong interest in the American market.<\/p>\n<p>Rumors have run more and more rampant since the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/04\/22\/nxt-revenge-week-two-review-4-21-26-saying-goodbye\/\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">April 21, 2026, episode of WWE NXT<\/a><\/span>. NXT Champion Tony D&#8217;Angelo received a mysterious box with the Japanese symbol on top, as NXT General Manager Robert Stone was talking about his next challenger. Keanu Carver arrived and said to the Champion he hadn&#8217;t sent him that box, but the symbol on it meant &#8220;War.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KeanuCarverWWE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@KeanuCarverWWE<\/a> with a little advice for NXT Champion <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TonyDangeloWWE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TonyDangeloWWE<\/a> \ud83d\ude2e<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MrStoneWWE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MrStoneWWE<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oezDRm3X1I\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/oezDRm3X1I<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE (@WWE) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE\/status\/2046767560784298461?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 22, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Who is EVIL?<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/07\/13\/evil-iwgp-champion\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">The Japanese veteran has been a prominent figure in NJPW<\/a> since debuting as a Young Lion in 2011. At various points during his tenure, EVIL has been aligned with many of the promotion&#8217;s major stables. These include <span>Los Ingobernables de Japon, the Bullet Club, and HOUSE OF TORTURE. EVIL led the latter of these groups from 2021 to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/01\/26\/could-njpws-evil-be-set-to-debut-at-the-wwe-royal-rumble\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">his departure in January 2026.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>EVIL&#8217;s rise to the top tier of NJPW came in the summer of 2020. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/07\/11\/evil-join-bullet-club\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">After turning on Tetsuya Naito and the Los Ingobernables stable,<\/a> he defeated his former teammate at Dominion the following day. The victory delivered a phenomenal double title win, capturing both the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental championships.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, EVIL has racked up an incredible amount of titles. In addition to his sole Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles, he is also a four-time NEVER Openweight Champion, a two-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, and a six-time NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champion. He also won the 2020 New Japan Cup, beating Kazuchika Okada in the final. He is also a back-to-back World Tag League winner, achieving this in 2017 and 2018 with Sanada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After months of speculation, former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL has reportedly signed with WWE. Several sources in Japan have confirmed that EVIL has agreed to a deal with WWE. The former HOUSE OF TORTURE leader is expected to work under a new moniker when he begins his tenure at the American promotion. According to other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5450,"featured_media":160122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14,2192,5,3],"tags":[623,188,116],"class_list":["post-160112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-njpw","category-wrestling","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-evil","tag-njpw","tag-nxt"],"modified_by":"Steph Franchomme","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160112"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160126,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160112\/revisions\/160126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}