Backstage Update On NJPW Departure Of Jeff Cobb, Reported WWE Interest

Jeff Cobb is officially leaving New Japan Pro Wrestling, mere days after winning the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships with Callum Newman, to join WWE. Cobb has reportedly been on WWE's internal roster for some time, leading many to wonder why NJPW put a title on him so close to his departure. On the latest episode of "Wrestling Observer Radio," Dave Meltzer explained where things might have gone wrong.

"He's going to WWE, left New Japan, held the tag team titles for like 9 days or something...I don't think they knew he was going," Meltzer said, who stated that it's a lesson for NJPW to learn from when it comes to putting belts on people who aren't under contract. "I don't think they knew when he was leaving, so I think that's the issue right there is that they didn't know when he was leaving and so they put the belts on him, and they wanted to use him to elevate Callum Newman and they did that, and he left suddenly. I think that they were not expecting it to be this soon."

Meltzer believes that NJPW were expecting Cobb to give them more notice so that he and Newman could lose the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships to another team, but given the fact that he is leaving so suddenly, Meltzer feels like WWE might want him involved over WrestleMania weekend in some capacity. Meltzer rounded off by saying that this is now the third time that WWE has signed someone while they were a champion elsewhere and essentially forced them to vacate their titles, after Ricky Starks in DEFY and Stephanie Vaquer in CMLL, stating they have no concern about what people do outside of their bubble.

Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.