Real Reason AEW Hasn't Signed Kairi Sane Yet (AEW News)

What's stopping Kairi Sane from appearing in AEW right now?

By Andrew Pollard /

WWE

With Ilja Dragunov having now officially landed in AEW, Kairi Sane is another former WWE name who's been regularly linked with joining Tony Khan's promotion.

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Not just that, but Kairi was a name brought up to AEW President Tony Khan during the post-WrestleDream media scrum over the weekend, where Khan called Sane a "fantastic wrestler" and said he was "very intrigued" by the possibility of her joining AEW at some point.

Per Dave Meltzer over at the Wrestling Observer, the belief is that Kairi Sane hasn't appeared in AEW yet due to a visa issue.

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Some may have noticed that the Pirate Princess has been announced for this year's Jericho Cruise, which takes place between November 7th - 11th, and the reason she's able to attend is that it takes place at sea rather than on US soil, setting sail to the Bahamas.

Amidst plentiful speculation, reports surfaced last month that Kairi Sane and AEW have been in talks about her joining the promotion, including the possibility of her debuting at All In back in August.

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To the dismay of many, Kairi Sane was part of WWE's post-WrestleMania 42 round of releases, which marks the second time that the hugely talented star had been let go by the market leader. Making that second release even more baffling was that Kairi was in the midst of a heavily featured storyline involving Asuka and IYO SKY, with Asuka having spent months berating Kairi, and WWE seemingly building towards the big moment that Sane would stand up to her mentor... only for WWE to instead release Kairi and leave that thread unresolved.