After beating cancer, former AEW competitor wins first major title following return

An AEW competitor beat cancer last year and returned to in-ring action in late 2024. The star recently won a major championship.

In October 2024, El Phantasmo revealed that he was diagnosed with cancer and would be out for a while. However, he returned to wrestling at the NJPW Road To Tokyo Dome event in December 2024 with good news, declaring that he had beaten cancer.

He then challenged Ren Narita for the NJPW World TV Championship at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 19 at the Tokyo Dome, in Tokyo, Japan. It was a four-way match that also featured Ryohei Oiwa and Jeff Cobb. The ending segments of the bout saw the Headbanga hit Narita with one of his signature moves, Thunder Kiss 86, to pick up the victory and win the title.

ELP is currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. But he has performed in AEW a few times in the past couple of years. He participated in the AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door events in 2022, 2023 and 2024. He also wrestled on All Elite shows Rampage and Collision in June last year. Both of the matches were multi-man tag bouts.

AEW performer El Phantasmo wins first singles title in NJPW

ELP has been wrestling for New Japan Pro-Westling for around five years now. He joined the promotion in 2019. Over the past few years, he has won a bunch of championships. He is a three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, a two-time Strong Openweight Tag Team Champion, and a one-time IWGP Tag Team Championship.

He had never won a singles title in the Japanese promotion until now. Defeating Ren Narita and winning the NJPW World Television Championship was his first singles title win in NJPW, and he is now in his first reign as the NJPW World TV Champion. It remains to be seen how things turn out for the Canadian now that he has won singles gold for the first time.