All-Japan News: Wrestler Departing One Promotion

This headline confused me when I saw it this morning because Weekly Pro reports All-Japan wrestler Rising Hayato is leaving the Ehime Pro Wrestling promotion soon. I couldn’t get all the details because the whole article is paywalled on their mobile site but apparently Hayato started out there and remained a member of the roster after joining All-Japan some time ago, but now he is leaving Ehime Pro. The Japanese call it “graduating” which means he is probably leaving on good terms and it’s partly his call. This shouldn’t affect his All-Japan participation, at least not negatively.

It’s not uncommon for wrestlers to be members of more than one promotion, at least where there are working relationships/shared ownership (like Pro Wrestling NOAH & DDT which are both owned by CyberFight Corporation), although there are notable outliers to this-specifically Konosuke Takeshita being a member of New Japan, DDT and All Elite Wrestling (New Japan & AEW have a working relationship, but New Japan & DDT don’t unless you count the relatively new United Japan Pro Wrestling alliance that has almost every major and notable independent promotion included EXCEPT All-Japan). All-Japan seems to be the exception though.