After weeks of speculation of when and where he could potentially show up, Jeff Cobb as officially arrived in WWE. The former New Japan Pro Wrestling star debuted at the recent Backlash Premium Live Event on May 10, but the circumstances of how Cobb left NJPW are still up for discussion. The company looked to have set up a number of matches for Cobb before announcing that he was leaving, with Dave Meltzer on a recent edition of "Wrestling Observer Radio" speculating why WWE pulled Cobb from dates in Japan so early.
"I don't know why Cobb had to leave so early,"Meltzer said. "It's fine if he left, the point is that like he had plenty of time to drop the tag team titles, plenty of time to have the match with [Hirooki] Goto and he still wouldn't have missed any WWE dates if he was debuting [at Backlash]. I think they didn't want him doing any jobs during his matches in Japan."
Cobb and Callum Newman won the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships from Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi at Sakura Genesis on April 6, with Cobb slated to challenge Hirooki Goto for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship a few weeks later. However, NJPW abruptly announced that he was leaving in mid-April, something that reportedly blindsided the company, with his final NJPW match taking place on April 19 against Takahashi at Korakuen Hall. Many people believed the abrupt exit was so Cobb could be involved over WrestleMania 41 weekend in some capacity, but he was nowhere to be seen on WWE TV until Backlash, where he looks to have become the newest associate of The Bloodline as he helped Jacob Fatu retain his WWE United States Championship.
Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
