{"id":160589,"date":"2026-04-29T01:24:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T05:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=160589"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:47:25","slug":"former-njpw-star-evil-debuts-on-wwe-nxt-who-is-the-king-of-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/04\/29\/former-njpw-star-evil-debuts-on-wwe-nxt-who-is-the-king-of-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NJPW Star EVIL Debuts on WWE NXT – Who is the King of Darkness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dubbed the “King of Darkness” in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), EVIL is now a part of WWE NXT<\/a>, debuting on the April 28, 2026, edition of the White and Gold brand<\/a>, and he made a huge impact. Current NXT Champion Tony D’Angelo was sent a mysterious box last week, which essentially said that they were declaring “War” on the head honcho of NXT.<\/p>\n

D’Angelo noted that he’s a wanted man and knows there’s a target on his back. That said, that box was the only thing he could think of. Ask, and you shall receive. The man who sent the box was none other than former NJPW star and staple EVIL, making his NXT debut.<\/p>\n

We have heard rumors of EVIL’s impending arrival to WWE<\/a> as his contract with NJPW expired back in January, with his final match coming in a losing effort, tagging with his House of Torture stablemates at New Year Dash!! 2026, falling to the man who ended his reign with the NEVER Openweight Championship, Aaron Wolf, as well as Toru Yano and Spiritech.<\/p>\n

EVIL achieved essentially everything he set out to do in NJPW. He was a former IWGP Intercontinental Champion, four-time NEVER Openweight Champion, two-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, and a staggering six-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship winner.<\/p>\n

Moreover, EVIL is a two-time winner of the World Tag League with Sanada, won the 2020 edition of the New Japan Cup, and in the same year, had his crowning achievement by becoming IWGP Heavyweight Champion, beating Tetsuya Naito in a Champion vs. Champion: Winner Takes all match that also involved his lone IWGP Intercontinental Title win, making him the the second ever NJPW Triple Crown Champion.<\/p>\n

\"EVIL
A photo of former NJPW star and current NXT superstar EVIL. (Photo Credit: By \u30be\u30fc\u30d2\u30e7\u30fc – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=52861600)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To add to this long list of achievements, EVIL also led some of the most prominent factions in NJPW, becoming the leader of the infamous Bullet Club, as well as the House of Torture, and beginning his career as the world-beater of Los Ingobernables de Jap\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

Tony D’Angelo better hold on to the NXT Title extremely tight, as the darkness has now dawned, and EVIL is looking for gold, and he’s hunting for the biggest prize WWE NXT has to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dubbed the “King of Darkness” in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), EVIL is now a part of WWE NXT, debuting on the April 28, 2026, edition of the White and Gold brand, and he made a huge impact. Current NXT Champion Tony D’Angelo was sent a mysterious box last week, which essentially said that they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3735,"featured_media":160600,"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":[13,14,2192,4,5,3],"tags":[623],"class_list":["post-160589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-njpw","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-evil"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160589","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\/3735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160589"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160679,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160589\/revisions\/160679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}