During Sunday’s Dominion event, KENTA appeared alongside Katsuyori Shibata in his first major appearance since leaving WWE earlier this year.
He got into the ring and announced his desire to enter the G1 Climax and show his version of professional wrestling.
Earlier in the night, Jon Moxley and Shingo Takagi both declared they would be entering this year’s G1 Climax, as well.
KENTA (Kenta Kobayashi) is 38 years old and just finished a rather forgettable five year run with WWE, where he performed as Hideo Itami on the NXT roster and later on 205 Live.
He came up in the All Japan system, debuting in May 2000 but was part of the mass exodus of talent that followed Mitsuharu Misawa as part of Pro Wrestling NOAH and was the promotion he was most associated with throughout his career. In NOAH, he became one of the top wrestlers in the world rising from a junior heavyweight star winning the championship three times along with three reigns as GHC junior heavyweight tag champion to later becoming GHC heavyweight champion in January 2013.
In 2014, he joined WWE and was introduced during an in-ring ceremony involving Hulk Hogan at a WWE event in Japan that summer. He debuted in NXT in September with his run highlighted by participating in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal in March 2015 at WrestleMania 31 (Correction: We had earlier written he won the battle royal but it was won by Big Show that year). He was riddled with injury setbacks that kept him out of the ring for extended periods. In December 2017, he was moved to 205 Live and performed on that show until requesting his release in February this year.
