KiLynn King Says Recent New Japan Appearance Won’t Be Her Last, Comments On AEW Status

KiLynn King is sure you’ll see her competing for New Japan Pro-Wrestling again.

New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s recent Rumble On 44th Street event featured KiLynn King challenging Mayu Iwatani for the SWA Undisputed World Women’s Championship. The match was King’s debut on a New Japan event, and she told WrestleZone‘s Bill Pritchard that it’s definitely not the last time she’ll compete for the promotion.

“I talked to the people who booked me afterward and they said it’s definitely not going to be the last time. We just got to see what happens because it’s one of those things where it’s like they have so many shows, so you never know what’s going on,” King explained. “I just got to wait and see what the next opportunity is, but I’m definitely still in contact with them. [It’s] just matter of seeing what ideas they have for me next.”

KiLynn King also spoke about her status with AEW, where she has sporadically appeared over the past two years. King said she still has a good relationship with AEW but she goes back when an opportunity presents itself.

“I’m good with them as far as I know, it’s just one of those things, like I said earlier, I have a good working relationship with them. I love everybody there. It’s just one of those things where they don’t really have anything for me. So I just, I go off, I bust my butt and do my thing, and then if they have a spot or an opportunity for me, then that’s kind of how August went. I hadn’t been there in probably five or six months, I think it was. I just got a random text just saying, ‘Hey, we want you on Dynamite’ and we worked out the details and we made it happen. It’s one of those things where the work relationship and the personal relationship is still there. It’s still open, but I’m just not contracted to them. I don’t have a permanent obligation to them. It’s just, they know me, I know them. We’re good. Whenever they have an opportunity for me, let’s do it.”

One of those opportunities was a match against current Interim AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm in August. King spoke about the reaction the announcement about her return got, sharing that it was heartwarming to know that the fanbase she cultivated were excited to see her back.

“The reaction, because it’s one of those things where any time you step away from a place, no matter what the circumstances are, when that place is giving you a constant – when it’s bringing constant attention to your name, you always get that panic and that worry. Like ‘if I step away from here, are people going to forget about me? Are they going to care about the other stuff that I go off and do? Because this was the place that was giving me a lot of attention.’ So I was really worried that they were going to announce me and people are going to be like, ‘who?’ So when they announced it and that I was going against Toni Storm and the Internet blew up, like I can’t tell you. I was literally at the gym, I had gotten a text message early that afternoon, confirmed it, went to the gym later on that night as Dynamite was on TV and then all of a sudden my phone just blew up. I just got, between social media and text messages, I [got] so much love. It was really, really cool.  I was like, ‘Wow, people are so excited I’m back. This is a nice feeling.’

“My goal was always — because I really didn’t have much of a career before I started with AEW, I’d only been wrestling for like a year and a half, two years on the Indies. A lot of my fan base was drawn in through AEW. So once I stepped away, I was like, ‘I need to make sure that I take the little fan base that I have right now and I grow it and I make people realize like, yo, it’s not just AEW, it’s me.’ I just worked my butt off as much as I possibly could, and somehow the kingdom grew. I was really excited to see that that announcement really just took off and people were very excited about that. So it was definitely a great, great feeling.”

King recently challenged Kamille for the NWA Women’s Championship at Hard Times in New Orleans. Click here for full results from the event. Check out our full video interview with KiLynn King below.

Read More: KiLynn King Shares What She Admired About Saraya, How It Made Her Comfortable With Herself