Bronson Reed Recalls NJPW Run After WWE Exit, Facing Kazuchika Okada

Bronson Reed had a stint in NJPW following his 2021 exit from WWE, and he recently recalled being able to face Kazuchika Okada during that run. Reed was released from WWE in 2021 and went to the indies and NJPW, a period he reflected on in an appearance on the Battleground Podcast. You can see highlights below (per Fightful):

On his mindset after his WWE release: “Yeah, I think for me, I’ve always had hurdles to sort of jump over in my career. Like even, even to getting to WWE before I was released, you know, I had a few tryouts and I was always one of those guys that never got hot shotted. I told you straight away, I’ve always had to prove myself, and I remember when I did get released from NXT, I was like, ‘well, I’m just going to go out there and prove myself again and make sure that they know they made the wrong decision.’”

On heading to NJPW and then returning to WWE: “I made sure that I knew I was going to get to Japan, but I didn’t know that I was going to have the matches I was going to have, and then how everything worked, and I got to work with, obviously, Okada, who at the time was unbeatable in Japan. You could say he was the Roman Reigns of New Japan at the time, for sure, and to beat him in the G1 and do what I did, I think it put a lot of eyes back on me. When the time was right, I got the call from Triple H to come back, and I made sure that I had that chip on my shoulder, like I said, to go, hey, well, if I can do this here, I can definitely do it anywhere else, and I’ve always wanted that opportunity to be able to do that on a Monday Night Raw or SmackDown or the PLEs. Now you’re getting to see it finally.”