Bruce Prichard, the Executive Director of WWE, has revealed the reason behind the iconic Great Muta not participating in any WWE matches during his elaborate wrestling career.
Discussing the subject on a recent episode of his “Something to Wrestle” podcast, Prichard mentioned that Gary Hart, Muta’s manager for many years who had a contentious relationship with WWE, played a significant role in this. Expressing his thoughts, he stated,
“There was a language barrier there, so it was somewhat difficult. In addition to that, we would’ve had to negotiate through Gary, which wasn’t preferred as there was no interest in Gary from WWE’s perspective, particularly at that point in time. Gary had had conversations with Vince and Pat over coffee previously, but the interest level wasn’t there on our end. Yes, we extended a friendly hello, but he was contracted elsewhere. So the opportunity never presented itself.”
Prichard also mentioned a memory from 1989 when he and Pat Patterson ran into Muta, whose actual name is Keiji Mutoh, at a WCW event in Connecticut. However, they were only there for a casual meetup.
Mutoh called time on his wrestling career in 2023, but was nonetheless given the chance by WWE to challenge Shinsuke Nakamura outside the WWE platform during his farewell tour.