{"id":43450,"date":"2019-04-05T18:05:33","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T22:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=43450"},"modified":"2019-04-07T17:10:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-07T21:10:18","slug":"breaking-kushida-officially-signs-nxt-contract-prior-to-takeover-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/04\/05\/breaking-kushida-officially-signs-nxt-contract-prior-to-takeover-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: KUSHIDA Officially Signs NXT Contract Prior to TakeOver: New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just\u00a0a few minutes\u00a0before\u00a0<em><strong>TakeOver: New York<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0went live,\u00a0leading up to the big event, <strong>WWE<\/strong> decided to reveal their newest <strong>NXT<\/strong> superstar, former 6x <strong>New Japan Pro Wrestling<\/strong>\u00a0IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2019\/02\/02\/back-to-the-future-time-splitter-kushida-officially-a-free-agent\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the &#8220;Time Splitter,&#8221; <strong>KUSHIDA<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/KUSHIDA_0904\/status\/1114279468938477568<\/p>\n<p>The 35-year-old veteran of 12 years, KUSHIDA announced his departure\u00a0from NJPW, where he had spent the last eight-plus years, earlier this year. He wrestled his last match for the company on January 29th at <em><strong>Road to the New Beginning 2019 &#8211; Tag 3<\/strong><\/em> against <strong>Hiroshi Tanahashi<\/strong>. Following his free agency, KUSHIDA was immediately linked to WWE and many expected he would be one of the traditional crowd debuts at TakeOver that NXT has become known for.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Triple H<\/strong> and <strong>William Regal<\/strong> were on hand to welcome KUSHIDA, who is also a 2x IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion alongside <strong>Alex Shelley<\/strong>, 2x winner of <em><strong>Best of the Super Juniors<\/strong><\/em> (XXII and XXIV), 1x <strong>Ring of Honor<\/strong> World Television Champion and 1x <em><strong>Super J Cup<\/strong><\/em> winner (2016), to the black-and-yellow brand, with Triple H referring to his newest signing as &#8220;one of the biggest international stars in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">With <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TripleH?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@TripleH<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RealKingRegal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@RealKingRegal<\/a> looking on, international Superstar @KUSHIDA_0904 signs his <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WWENXT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WWENXT<\/a> contract! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aCaDOCQIrC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/aCaDOCQIrC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE NXT (@WWENXT) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWENXT\/status\/1114277575931486208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 5, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We\u2019re making history tonight&#8230;<br \/>&#8230;and the show hasn\u2019t even started. <\/p>\n<p>Welcome the internationally renowned @KUSHIDA_0904 to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWENXT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WWENXT<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GameChanger?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#GameChanger<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WeAreNXT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WeAreNXT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NXTTakeOver?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NXTTakeOver<\/a>: New York <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWEJapan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WWEJapan<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NtTzRgrBGu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/NtTzRgrBGu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Triple H (@TripleH) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TripleH\/status\/1114280629724749829?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 5, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just\u00a0a few minutes\u00a0before\u00a0TakeOver: New York\u00a0went live,\u00a0leading up to the big event, WWE decided to reveal their newest NXT superstar, former 6x New Japan Pro Wrestling\u00a0IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, the &#8220;Time Splitter,&#8221; KUSHIDA. https:\/\/twitter.com\/KUSHIDA_0904\/status\/1114279468938477568 The 35-year-old veteran of 12 years, KUSHIDA announced his departure\u00a0from NJPW, where he had spent the last eight-plus years, earlier this year. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2418,"featured_media":43456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[2,2192,4,5,3],"tags":[190,116,671,4910,75,47],"class_list":["post-43450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-kushida","tag-nxt","tag-nxt-takeover","tag-nxt-takeover-new-york","tag-triple-h","tag-wwe"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43450","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\/2418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}