Kairi Sane reportedly returning to Japan; WWE already had plans to write her out

A report from a couple days ago said Kairi Sane’s status with WWE was “complicated”. The newest edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter goes in-depth on the former NXT and WWE Women’s Tag champ’s situation. If Dave Meltzer’s right, “complicated” is a good word - but the end result is pretty clear.

“Sane, 31, is returning to Japan to be with her husband.”

That’s how Dave’s report opens. He goes on to say this has been the plan for a while (they were married in February), and WWE’s been aware of it since May. There was a plan to have Asuka’s SummerSlam opponent deliver a “career-ending injury” to Kairi in-story, which would have served as Sane’s write-off from the company and given her Kabuki Warriors’ partner more motivation for a feud.

But that was before the Pirate Princess was legitimately injured during her match with Nia Jax on May 26.

After Kairi got hurt working with Jax (Meltzer writes they were too close to the ring steps when Nia whipped Sane into them, so Kairi was unable to control her bump), WWE decided not to mention her or the injury on television. This could be so they can still run the write-off angle. Sane is now cleared and listed for the tapings today (July 3), so look for her on the July 6 and/or July 13 episode of Raw.

Kairi’s original attacker was probably going to be either Charlotte Flair - who is taking time off and probably won’t be at the tapings, and might not be back in time for SummerSlam - or her old NXT foil Shayna Baszler. But Vince McMahon has supposedly soured on Baszler, and removed her from all plans.

Asuka is currently scheduled to face Sasha Banks at Extreme Rules, and The Boss & her best friend Bayley have vowed revenge for the Raw Women’s champ getting involved in Banks match with Io Shirai on NXT this past Wednesday. Sasha was showing more of a vicious side while wrestling Shirai at Great American Bash, and an attack on Kairi by The Role Models could work. Or that might just be this writer wanting more action between the joshi power trio and Sasha & Bayley.

No matter, it does sound like Sane’s WWE run is coming to a close. Meltzer writes she’ll likely wrestle for another year in Japan before retiring.