What’s the story?
When Kyle O’Reilly lost the ROH World Championship to Adam Cole at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 11, the rumour mill went into overdrive speculating as to when the Canadian fighter would turn up in WWE or NXT.
Almost two months have passed and O’Reilly’s future remains somewhat uncertain, and legal wrangling may well be the reason why.
Cagesideseats.com are speculating that the reason O’Reilly is yet to sign with WWE could well be down to contractual complications with Ring of Honor. WWE is rumoured to still be interested in The Martial Artist, but until all the legal mess has been cleaned it a contract is unlikely to be offered.
In case you didn’t know...
Over the past few years, British Columbia-born Kyle O’Reilly has put together a resume that puts him in the upper echelons of talent in the professional wrestling world. O’Reilly has worked extensively for ROH, New Japan, PWG and a whole lot more, gaining a reputation for being a hard-hitting hybrid technical wrestler as good as any of his peers.
O’Reilly is a former ROH World Champion, three-time ROH World Tag Team Champion, two-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and PWG World Champion. The former of those was won at ROH Final Battle 2016, but O’Reilly lost the title straight back to Adam Cole in Tokyo just a few short weeks later. At that point, a move to WWE seemed inevitable.
The heart of the matter
O’Reilly’s contract with Ring of Honor ended earlier in January and he was subsequently removed from the company’s website and all future events, further fuelling the talk that he was WWE-bound.
Three days after his ROH departure, O’Reilly won the ECCW Championship only to vacate the title immediately out of a desire to ensure the promotion had a Champion who was able to defend the title.
The world of professional wrestling contracts is particularly murky, however, and despite O’Reilly being removed from future ROH events, he could well yet find himself tied to the company in some way still.
What’s next?
As mentioned earlier, this story can well and truly be filed in the ‘rumour’ column, but O’Reilly’s relative silence over the last month or so tells its own story. O’Reilly will be eager to sort his future out, and whilst ROH may yet hold the key they would be unlikely to interfere if WWE was indeed interested in their former champion.
Sportskeeda’s take
Until either side makes a public move this will all be speculation. The sooner Kyle O’Reilly back inside the squared circle, the better.
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