Pro Wrestling NOAH Superstar KENOH Weighs In On EVIL to WWE Rumours

By: Lewis Carlan

The news was announced yesterday by New Japan Pro-Wrestling that their long time superstar EVIL will not be returning to the promotion when his contract expires at the end of January. There have been speculative rumours that EVIL will be heading to the WWE once he becomes a free agent.

Pro Wrestling NOAH superstar KENOH devoted an entire video released on his YouTube channel to EVIL and discussed the possibility of him ending up in the WWE.

KENOH pointed out that EVIL was seen at last year’s WWE WrestleMania and suggested that maybe he was job hunting. KENOH wondered if EVIL signed a WWE contract at WrestleMania which would make his appearance at the Royal Rumble very probable.

From KENOH:

At last year’s WrestleMania, a lot of Japanese wrestlers were active, right? And there was this one guy who was caught on camera backstage. I saw it on X or something. He was there… That’s right! He was there, this guy. No matter how you look at it, it was EVIL! Shinsuke Nakamura was behind him, too. Yeah, he was just standing there, kind of… without any eye makeup, you know, the original… the guy with his real name, ‘(Wata)nabe-san’. Eh?! Wait. Maybe he was already ‘job hunting’ at that time. He might have gone there to look for a job. ‘Why is he there?!’ I thought. Is he a WWE fan? He might have already signed a contract there. If that’s the case, then his chances of being in the Royal Rumble are pretty high, aren’t they?”

KENOH also had another possible scenario to which Tetsuya Naito is summoning EVIL to join LOS TRANQUILOS de JAPON. This is very interesting that KENOH would suggest this because on the Feb. 6th NOAH LEGACY RISE 2026 event, Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI will have a mystery partner in their six man tag team bout against KENTA, HAYATA & Tetsuya Endo.

Could the mystery partner be EVIL? As he is departing NJPW at the end of January, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that EVIL is announced as the partner for Naito & BUSHI at the Pro Wrestling NOAH event.

Here is the full KENOH YouTube video as he discusses EVIL’s departure from NJPW: