We recently reported Sasha Banks (Mercedes Varnado) will be in attendance for NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17.

According to VoicesOfWrestling.com, NJPW has reportedly been working on a limited appearance deal for Varnado with "a fee that would be significantly higher than what New Japan paid for Chris Jericho" and make her "the highest paid Bushiroad (parent company of NJPW and Stardom) contracted wrestler."

It remains unclear if Varnado has signed the deal.

During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted the following:

“Voices of Wrestling said that it was a per-appearance deal at the highest price that Bushiroad has ever paid anyone, and they said it was more than Chris Jericho. Which to me sounds… I don’t know. Chris Jericho made $100,000 a shot when he was working for New Japan, and, man, $100,000 a shot, she’s gonna have to … with Chris Jericho he was actually underpaid because of how much revenue he drove between New Japan World and ticket sales at the different shows and things like that. But I don’t see her driving that revenue, but I guess we’ll find out.

The Tokyo Dome may be one thing, but for other shows, and a lot of them in the United States, I don’t see where she’s gonna drive $100,000 of extra revenue. On a per-appearance basis, obviously tons more than she would have made in WWE, but in total, they’re not gonna book her on enough shows to where she would make in the long run what she would make in WWE. It’s only a few shows, she has plenty of time to do other projects, perhaps work for AEW.”