Chad Allegra (born January 20, 1980), known by his ring name Karl Anderson, is an American professional wrestler. He is known for his tenures in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), WWE and Impact Wrestling.
Anderson is known for his work as a tag team specialist, having become a 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. 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 is a founding member and mouthpiece 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. He also wrestled for Southern California–based independent promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) between 2007 and 2009.
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. Allegra 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).
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.
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 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.
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 participated 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 final 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 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 however noted that he did not hate PWG, saying that they treated him well and gave him an opportunity when no one else would.
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 A. C. H. in his first round match. On August 17, Anderson was eliminated from the tournament in the quarterfinals by Michael Elgin.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2008–2016)
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, to whom Anderson lost by submission. Based on his performance, Anderson was signed to a one-year contract by NJPW. Anderson then joined NJPW's top heel stable Great Bash Heel (GBH) and spent the rest of the year wrestling in midcard matches. 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 challenged for 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 defeated Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi) in the final to win the tournament and earn another chance for the title. 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 was not 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.