New Kairi Sane Report Suggests Why She May Have Been Released From WWE

The "We Want Kairi" campaign may have just had the wind taken out of its sails.

Multi-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Kairi Sane was among the more than two dozen talent cuts this past Friday night, but perhaps no single star has received a bigger outpouring of public support in the days since than the Pirate Princess.

After Sane's name was trending all weekend long on social media, the crowd in Laredo, Texas began to loudly chant for her during an altercation between IYO SKY and Asuka during Monday Night Raw.

Two of the best.
Prepare to see something special. @Iyo_SkyWWE and @WWEAsuka will face each other in less than two weeks at #WWEBacklash pic.twitter.com/zSSSixejkg
— Triple H (@TripleH) April 28, 2026

When WWE Chief Content Officer Paul 'Triple H' Levesque later hyped up the match that will take place between SKY and Asuka at Backlash next month, fans immediately began to voice their displeasure that Kairi Sane — who was a central figure in this rivalry — was no longer around for her part in the story to conclude. And many people were neither kind nor respectful with their remarks.

There's a belief that Kairi Sane wanted to return home to Japan

Given her importance to this storyline, Sane's sudden departure from WWE was easily the most head-scratching, but the Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer has now shed some light on why Kairi may have found herself on the TKO-mandated chopping block.

"The reason she was cut was, I think she had kinda indicated that she wanted to move back (to Japan)," Meltzer said on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio. “The reality is, this is not a money issue. This company makes... whatever it is. The revenue between UFC and WWE and throwing everything in, the revenue's in the billions of dollars.""

Not exactly concrete information there, but if Sane did have a desire to return home to Japan, then it certainly better explains the decision by Paul Levesque, Nick Khan and the talent relations department to trim Kairi from the roster, as opposed to another talent who firmly wants to be on the road with WWE.

It still doesn't explain why Kairi had to be cut when she was cut, which was prior to her months-long story arc with IYO and Asuka coming to an end.

Mike Johnson of PWinsider reported on Monday that Sane was already back in Japan, squashing any hopes that the "We Want Kairi" campaign would have caused WWE to reconsider their decision in time to have her appear on Raw Monday night.

If what Dave Meltzer is saying today is true, a return for Sane of any kind may not be in the cards regardless of how much noise the fans make.

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