Karl Anderson

Chad Allegra (born January 20, 1980) is an American professional wrestler better known by the ring name Karl Anderson.

He is currently signed to WWE where he performs on the SmackDown brand.

He is a member of the stable The O.C. as well as a former member of the Bullet Club.

Anderson is known for his work as a tag team specialist, most notably in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is a former four-time IWGP Tag Team Champion.

He also holds the record for the longest reign and most defenses with the title, achieved on his first reign with former partner Giant Bernard.

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 felt 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 loss with The Zodiac.

In the early stages on his career, he had matches with Prince Justice, Jimmy Valiant, Chris Harris, Shark Boy, and Jerry Lawler.

In the NWF, Allegra started as part of the Young Lions, a four-man group of popular rookies who entered the promotion around 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.

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 NJPW LA 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.

He also wrestled for Southern California-based independent promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) between 2007 and 2009.

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.

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.

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.

On February 24, 2008, he participated in a tournament for the PWG World Championship, defeating Kazarian in his first round match.

Anderson is a founding member and the second leader of the Bullet Club stable, and a three-time winner of NJPW's top tag team tournament, the G1/World Tag League, having won it in 2009 with Bernard, in 2012 with Hirooki Goto, and in 2013 with Doc Gallows.

Anderson and Bernard also held Pro Wrestling Noah's GHC Tag Team Championship, and were voted tag team of the year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in 2011.

Anderson spent the majority of his career in Japan, before signing with WWE alongside Gallows, A.J. Styles, and Shinsuke Nakamura in 2016.

During his first run in WWE, Anderson and Gallows won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship twice.

In April 2020, Anderson and Gallows were released by WWE and, three months later, signed a contract with Impact Wrestling, where they became three-time Impact World Tag Team Champions.

Their contracts with Impact expired in 2022, and that same year, Anderson won NJPW's NEVER Openweight Championship, and, while still champion, he and Gallows returned to WWE in October 2022.

At Wrestle Kingdom 17 on January 4, 2023, Anderson became the first WWE contracted wrestler to perform at NJPW's marquee event where he lost the title.

Allegra grew up in Pipestone, Minnesota 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).