Double-booked Karl Anderson going to Crown Jewel instead of NJPW to defend title

Karl Anderson was scheduled to defend his NEVER Openweight champion for NJPW on November 5 but now he won’t be able to make the date because WWE has him booked for Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia that day.

In a video posted on social media, Anderson and Gallows addressed New Japan, with Gallows saying that he runs the booking for both of them and NJPW never went through him to book Anderson before announcing him for the show.

“Guess what? We’re a little double-booked because you didn’t run it through me. So, he ain’t coming. We’re not coming unless it’s on our time,” Gallows said.

The video, obviously done in character, continues with Anderson saying that while he loves NJPW for what they did to the Good Brothers over the years, he’s the greatest NEVER Openweight champion and will only work when the lights are bright.

“The Machine Gun will tell you when I’m coming to defend my championship,” he said.

Funny enough, both Gallows and Anderson were very vocal about their last trip to Saudi Arabia when they got held hostage by the Saudi government.

“MPs were surrounding us on the airway tarmac. There were a couple of situations, where just for a couple of seconds, I was like…’F*** man.’ We are in such a corrupt country with such a corrupt government,” Anderson said at the time during his podcast.

ATTENTION:::::!!!!!!!

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM THE GREATEST #NEVEROPENWEIGHTCHAMPION ON THE FACT THAT @njpw1972 BOOKED ME WITHOUT GOING THRU MY BOOKING AGENT @the_biglg ……. SO WITH THAT SAID …..
We gotta little problem.
Signed, @wwe ‘s #theOC ‘s Karl “Bright Lights” Anderson pic.twitter.com/b5N8yIW7Xa

— Karl Anderson (@MachineGunKA) October 19, 2022