Karl Anderson

Early life

Allegra grew up in Asheville, North Carolina with his younger brother and mother. He received a baseball scholarship to study at Mars Hill College in his home state before dropping out to pursue a wrestling career. Upon moving to Cincinnati, Ohio he began training for a short time at Les Thatcher's Main Event Pro Wrestling Camp, the school associated with the Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA). But then moved on to train for many years with Roger Ruffen and The Northern Wrestling Federation.

Early career (2000–2005)

Shortly after beginning his training under Les Thatcher in 2000, he received a concussion at the hands of fellow trainee Derek Neikirk, which put Allegra on the shelf for over a year. When he finally felt that he was able to return, he contacted Kirk Sheppard who worked for the Northern Wrestling Federation (NWF) in Cincinnati, who introduced him to Roger Ruffen, the head trainer at BoneKrushers (the NWF's wrestling school). Allegra trained for several months before debuting under his real name in his first professional match on May 10, 2002 in a losing encounter with The Zodiac. His second match was against Prince Justice, who is now better known as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's (TNA) Abyss. He also had matches with The Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant, Chris Harris, Shark Boy, and Jerry Lawler in the early stages of his career. In the NWF, Allegra started as part of the Young Lions, a four-man group of popular rookies who entered the promotion at about the same time. First to leave the group was Matt Parks. Allegra eventually joined Parks as a heel and began a feud with Ryan Stone and Jay Donaldson. In the summer of 2005, the NWF and the HWA began an interpromotional feud. It culminated in a one on one, title vs. title match between Allegra, the NWF Champion, and Cody Hawk, the HWA champion.

National Wrestling Alliance (2005–2008)

In October 2005, Allegra had the opportunity to wrestle at the National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA) annual convention, where he was noticed by Dave Marquez of New Japan Pro-Wrestling's (NJPW) Los Angeles dojo. Allegra was invited to train at the dojo and so after losing the NWF title to Ryan Stone on January 1, 2006, Allegra began living and wrestling on the West Coast. On the West Coast, Allegra was repackaged as "Machine Gun" Karl Anderson, becoming a storyline member of the Anderson wrestling family and adopting the family's trademark spinebuster as his new finishing maneuver. Over the years, the association with the Anderson family has quietly been dropped. Before long, he won the NWA British Commonwealth Championship before losing it to Alex Koslov. Anderson makes occasional visits in the Midwest, making cameos for Ruffen's NWF when he is able and is the current NWA Heartland States Champion for Ed Chuman's NWA Midwest promotion.

In 2007, he began teaming with Joey Ryan, on NWA cards promoted by David Marquez. He appeared weekly on MavTV, a small broadcast network, carried on limited stations. The team's first title match came against The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) in a losing attempt for the AWS Tag Team Championship. In April, Anderson won the EWF American Championship from Human Tornado. On July 8, 2007, he and Ryan won a 3-way tag match to claim the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship. Anderson lost his EWF American Championship to Mikey Nicholls on September 7, 2007, in a 30-minute Iron Man match, which also included Ryan Taylor. Anderson and Ryan, now going as the Real American Heroes, successfully defend their championship on multiple occasions, but would eventually lose it to Los Luchas (Phoenix Star and Zokre) on February 10, 2008.

Pro Wrestling Guerilla (2007–2009)

In early 2007, Anderson debuted for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), picking up big wins over established wrestlers such as Frankie Kazarian and Colt Cabana. He would continue to appear for PWG over the year, occasionally teaming with Joey Ryan's Dynasty faction. On February 24, 2008, he would participate in a tournament for the PWG World Championship, defeating Kazarian in his first round match. Later that same day, he was defeated by Human Tornado in the finals of the tournament, which also included Roderick Strong. After an eleven-month break from PWG, Anderson returned on February 21, 2009, once again teaming with The Dynasty. On August 28, he and Joey Ryan unsuccessfully challenged The Young Bucks for the PWG World Tag Team Championship. Anderson made his to date final appearance for PWG on September 4, 2009, when he was defeated by Roderick Strong. In 2013, looking back at his time on the Californian independent circuit, Allegra stated "I actually hated my whole time in L.A. There were always great times, but I look back on it now, and I wasn't happy there at all. I just didn't enjoy myself". He has though noted that he did not hate PWG, saying that they treated him well and gave him an opportunity when no one else would.

Ring of Honor (2007, 2013)

On October 19, 2007, Anderson made his debut for Ring of Honor (ROH), losing to Chris Hero in a Survival of the Fittest qualifying match. Two days later, Anderson was defeated by Adam Pearce in a singles match. After not appearing for ROH in over five years, Anderson returned to the promotion on April 5, 2013, at Supercard of Honor VII, defeating Roderick Strong. At the following day's tapings of Ring of Honor Wrestling, Anderson picked up another win over Michael Elgin. Anderson returned to the promotion on July 27 to take part in the ROH World Championship tournament, defeating ACH in his first round match. On August 17, Anderson was eliminated from the tournament in the quarterfinals by Michael Elgin.

Bad Intentions (2008–2012)

As part of the new talent exchange agreement between the NWA and NJPW, Anderson replaced Yuji Nagata on March 23, 2008 in the annual New Japan Cup tournament. His opponent in the first round was New Japan's junior heavyweight division ace, Koji Kanemoto. Anderson lost that match due to submission. Based on his performance, Anderson was instantly signed to a one-year contract by New Japan. Anderson then joined New Japan's top heel stable Great Bash Heel (GBH) and spent the rest of the year wrestling in midcards of NJPW events. After a jump from GBH to Chaos, Anderson formed the tag team Bad Intentions with Giant Bernard and on June 20 the two of them received a shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship, but were unable to defeat the defending champions Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon). Anderson and Bernard entered the 2009 G1 Tag League and were able to defeat Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi) in the finals to win the tournament and earn another shot at Team 3D. On November 8 at Destruction '09, the second match between Bad Intentions and Team 3D ended in a double countout. On April 4, 2010, Chaos members Toru Yano and Takashi Iizuka turned on Anderson and kicked him out of the stable with help from Tetsuya Naito and Yujiro Takahashi, who joined the stable in the process. Giant Bernard, who wasn't present at the show, ended up leaving Chaos alongside his tag team partner. On June 19, 2010, at Dominion 6.19, Anderson and Bernard defeated the teams of Seigigun (Yuji Nagata and Wataru Inoue) and No Limit (Tetsuya Naito and Yujiro Takahashi) in a three-way elimination match to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship.

Bad Intentions made their first successful defense of the IWGP Tag Team Championship on July 19, defeating Seigigun and No Limit in a three-way "Dogfight". In late October Bad Intentions entered the 2010 G1 Tag League, where, after three wins and two losses, they finished second in their block and advanced to the semifinals, where, on November 7, they were defeated by the eventual winners of the whole tournament, Yuji Nagata and Wataru Inoue. On January 4, 2011, at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, Bad Intentions successfully defended the IWGP Tag Team Championship in a three–way match against Beer Money, Inc. (James Storm and Robert Roode) and Muscle Orchestra (Manabu Nakanishi and Strong Man). On May 3, Bad Intentions defeated No Limit to make their seventh successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense, tying the all-time record for most defenses, set by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahiro Chono. Bad Intentions made their record breaking eight successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense on June 18 at Dominion 6.18 against Pro Wrestling Noah's Takuma Sano and Yoshihiro Takayama, and in the process also became the new GHC Tag Team Champions.

Bad Intentions' ninth successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense took place on July 3, when they defeated Hirooki Goto and IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. On July 23, Bad Intentions made an appearance for Pro Wrestling Noah, making their first successful defense of the GHC Tag Team Championship against the team of Takeshi Morishima and Yutaka Yoshie. On September 9, Bad Intentions became the longest reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions in history by breaking the previous record of 446 days, set by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahiro Chono in 2003. Bad Intentions made their second GHC Tag Team Championship defense on October 31, defeating Go Shiozaki and Shuhei Taniguchi at a Pro Wrestling Noah event. During New Japan's 2011 G1 Tag League, Bad Intentions suffered their first tag team loss in a year, when they were defeated by the Complete Players (Masato Tanaka and Yujiro Takahashi), but still managed to win their four other matches and advance to the semifinals of the tournament. On November 6, after defeating the Billion Powers (Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi) in the semifinals, Bad Intentions were defeated in the finals of the 2011 G1 Climax by Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki and Lance Archer). On November 12 at Power Struggle, Bad Intentions made their tenth successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense against Archer and Suzuki. On January 4, 2012, at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, Bad Intentions lost the IWGP Tag Team Championship to Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima), ending their record-setting reign at 564 days. On January 22, Bad Intentions lost the GHC Tag Team Championship to Akitoshi Saito and Jun Akiyama. In March, Bad Intentions was disbanded, after Bernard left New Japan to return to the WWE.

Bullet Club (2012–2016)

Launching his New Japan singles career, Anderson entered the 2012 New Japan Cup on April 1. After victories over Hiroyoshi Tenzan and multi-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, arguably the biggest win of his career, he was eliminated from the tournament in the semifinals by Hiroshi Tanahashi. On May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2012, Nakamura defeated Anderson in a rematch. In August, Anderson took part in the 2012 G1 Climax tournament, where he won four out of his first seven matches, before scoring an upset win over IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi on August 12, the final day of the tournament, to win his block and advance to the finals. In the finals, which was held immediately after Anderson's win over Tanahashi, Anderson was defeated by Kazuchika Okada. During the following months, Anderson continued his feud with Okada, leading to him unsuccessfully challenging for Okada's Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Dome title shot contract on October 8 at King of Pro-Wrestling. On November 11 at Power Struggle, Anderson unsuccessfully challenged Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. On November 15, Anderson entered a tournament to determine the inaugural NEVER Openweight Champion. After wins over Yujiro Takahashi, Shiori Asahi and Kengo Mashimo, Anderson was defeated in the finals of the tournament on November 19 by Masato Tanaka. From November 20 to December 1, Anderson took part in the round-robin portion of the 2012 World Tag League, alongside Hirooki Goto under the team name "Sword & Guns". The team finished with a record of four wins and two losses, finishing second in their block and advancing to the semifinals of the tournament. On December 2, Sword & Guns defeated Tencozy to advance to the finals of the tournament, where, later that same day, they defeated the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith, Jr. and Lance Archer), to win the tournament. Sword & Guns received their shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship on January 4, 2013 at Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Dome, but were defeated in a rematch by K.E.S. Following his August 2012 win over Hiroshi Tanahashi, Anderson received his first shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on February 10, 2013, at The New Beginning, but was defeated by Tanahashi in a rematch. In an attempt to earn another shot at Tanahashi, Anderson entered the 2013 New Japan Cup on March 11, defeating Hiroyoshi Tenzan in his first round match. Six days later, Anderson was eliminated from the tournament in the second round by Kazuchika Okada.

On May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2013, Anderson faced Hiroshi Tanahashi in another high-profile match, but was again defeated. After the match, Anderson turned heel by joining Prince Devitt, Bad Luck Fale and Tama Tonga in attacking Tanahashi. The new group was subsequently named "Bullet Club". From August 1 to 11, Anderson took part in the 2013 G1 Climax, where he finished with a record of five wins and four losses, with a loss against Tetsuya Naito on the final day costing him a spot in the finals of the tournament. In October, Anderson set his sights on the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, held by Kazuchika Okada, looking to avenge his loss from the finals of the 2012 G1 Climax. The title match between the two took place on November 9 at Power Struggle and saw Okada retain his title. From November 24 to December 8, Anderson and Bullet Club's newest member, Doc Gallows, took part in the 2013 World Tag League. After winning their block with a record of four wins and two losses, Anderson and Gallows first defeated GBH (Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma) in the semifinals and then Tencozy in the finals to win the tournament, giving Anderson his overall third G1/World Tag League win and the second in a row. Anderson and Gallows received their title shot on January 4, 2014 at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, where they defeated K.E.S. to become the new IWGP Tag Team Champions. Anderson and Gallows made their first successful title defense on February 9 at The New Beginning in Hiroshima, defeating K.E.S. in a rematch. Their second defense took place on April 6 at Invasion Attack 2014, where they defeated Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata.

Following the event, Devitt left New Japan, leading to Anderson taking over as the new leader of Bullet Club. Anderson and Gallows' third successful defense took place just seven days later, during New Japan's trip to Taiwan, when they defeated Hirooki Goto and Captain Taiwan. On May 17, Anderson and Gallows made their fourth successful title defense against The Briscoes (Jay and Mark) at a NJPW and ROH co-produced event, War of the Worlds, in New York City. On June 21 at Dominion 6.21, Anderson and Gallows made their fifth successful defense against Ace to King (Hiroshi Tanahashi and Togi Makabe). From July 21 to August 8, Anderson took part in the 2014 G1 Climax, where he finished third in his block with a record of five wins and five losses. On September 21 at Destruction in Kobe, Anderson and Gallows made their sixth successful title defense against Chaos' Kazuchika Okada and Yoshi-Hashi. Two days later at Destruction in Okayama, Anderson unsuccessfully challenged Okada for his IWGP Heavyweight Championship number one contender's contract. In December, Anderson and Gallows made it to the finals of the 2014 World Tag League, after winning their block with a record of five wins and two losses. On December 7, Anderson and Gallows were defeated in the finals of the tournament by Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata. Anderson and Gallows' year-long reign as the IWGP Tag Team Champions came to an end on January 4, 2015 at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome, where they were defeated by Goto and Shibata.

Anderson and Gallows regained the title from Goto and Shibata on February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka. They lost the title to The Kingdom (Matt Taven and Michael Bennett) on April 5 at Invasion Attack 2015. They regained the title from The Kingdom on July 5 at Dominion 7.5 in Osaka-jo Hall. From July 23 to August 15, Anderson took part in the 2015 G1 Climax. He entered the final day with a chance to advance from his block, but was eliminated after losing to Satoshi Kojima, giving him a record of six wins and three losses. During the tournament, Anderson defeated Shinsuke Nakamura, which led to him unsuccessfully challenging Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship on November 7 at Power Struggle. On January 4, 2016 at Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome, Anderson and Gallows lost the IWGP Tag Team Championship to Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma. Hours after the event, it was reported that both Anderson and Gallows had given their notice to NJPW on the morning of January 4, announcing that they were leaving the promotion for WWE. Anderson remained under NJPW contract and was expected to finish off his contracted dates with the promotion before leaving. On February 14 at The New Beginning in Niigata, Anderson and Gallows received a rematch for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, but were again defeated by Makabe and Honma. On February 19, Anderson confirmed in an interview with Tokyo Sports that he was leaving NJPW after the following day's Honor Rising: Japan 2016 show. In his final NJPW match, Anderson teamed with Bad Luck Fale, Doc Gallows and Tama Tonga, losing to Bobby Fish, Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata and Kyle O'Reilly in an eight-man tag team match.

Global Force Wrestling (2015)

On May 6, 2015, Global Force Wrestling (GFW) announced Anderson as part of their roster. Anderson and Doc Gallows main evented the first-ever GFW show on June 12, defeating the New Heavenly Bodies (Dustin and Justin) in a tag team match.

WWE (2016–present)

On the April 11 episode of Raw, Anderson and Gallows made their debut, attacking The Usos after their victory over The Social Outcasts, before being removed by several referees. On the April 18 episode of Raw, Anderson and Gallows attacked WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns, following Reigns' promo with AJ Styles. The following week on Raw, Anderson and Gallows would make their in-ring debuts, defeating The Usos. During this time, Anderson and Gallows would help Styles in his feud with Reigns, with Styles at first reluctant for their help, until the May 2 episode of Raw, when Styles teamed with Anderson and Gallows, where they began being known as The Club, defeating Reigns and the Usos. At Extreme Rules, Anderson and Gallows would interfere in Reigns' and Styles' Extreme Rules match for Reigns' WWE World Heavyweight Championship. They would attacked Reigns until the Usos, who lost their Tornado Tag Team match to Anderson and Gallows earlier in the night, would brawl with the two until Reigns would retain. The following night on Raw, Styles requested to leave The Club, stating that the WWE "wasn't Japan". Anderson and Gallows left Styles shortly after Styles would lose to Kevin Owens in a Money in the Bank qualifying match.

On the May 30 episode of Raw, AJ Styles would confront a returning John Cena who said the "new era" would have to go through him, before offering Styles his hand. Styles shook his hand, shortly before Anderson and Gallows would interrupt. As Styles and Cena appeared ready to fight Anderson and Gallows, Styles instead beat down Cena repeatedly, reuniting The Club. In the 2016 WWE draft, Anderson, along with Gallows, was drafted to Raw, while Styles was drafted to SmackDown, thereby splitting up The Club.

Gallows and Anderson injured Big E's groin by driving his lower region into the ringpost, which caused him to miss a few weeks of in-ring competition, and then pretended to be doctors in a segment where they were trying to cure a condition they named as "Ringpostitis". At SummerSlam, Gallows and Anderson defeated Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, representing The New Day, by disqualification in a WWE Tag Team Championship match after Big E returned and attacked the two. Gallows and Anderson lost in rematches against The New Day at Clash of Champions and the following night on Raw.

On the November 7 episode of Raw, Gallows and Anderson were announced as part of Team Raw for the 10–on–10 Survivor Series Tag Team Elimination match at Survivor Series. The same night, while being at odds with the rest of Team Raw, they defeated The New Day in a non-title bout.

On the January 18, 2017 episode of Raw, Gallows and Anderson appeared to defeat Cesaro and Sheamus by pinfall for the Raw Tag Team Championship; however, due to Sheamus having hit the referee, the decision was reversed to a disqualification, leading to them winning the match but not the title. This led to a rematch with two referees on the Royal Rumble pre-show on January 29, where Gallows and Anderson became the new Raw Tag Team Champions. Gallows and Anderson would eventually lose the titles to the returning Hardy Boyz (Matt and Jeff Hardy) at WrestleMania 33 in a fatal 4-way tag team ladder match also involving Cesaro and Sheamus and Enzo Amore and Big Cass.

On the August 14 Raw, Gallows and Anderson aligned themselves with Big Cass and attacked the Big Show.

Personal life

Allegra is married and has three sons. The family lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Allegra is close friends with Fergal Devitt and Shinsuke Nakamura, both of whom he first met at the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo in Los Angeles.

In wrestling

Championships and accomplishments