In an interview with SI.com, Adam Cole talked about his AEW debut at the All Out PPV event in Chicago and how he was able to keep it a secret:
“I didn’t even fly into Chicago, I flew into a different city the day before. I didn’t even stay in the same hotel as Bryan [Danielson]. We showed up to the building while the show was going on, and we waited outside in a trailer. The locker room didn’t even know until the absolute last moment. It was the most secretive debut I’ve ever been involved in, and Tony Khan took every measure to make this as big of a surprise as possible.”
Cole also noted that he made his final decision to join AEW just days before All Out:
“My actual decision was literally only a couple days before [the pay-per-view],” Cole says. “I was awake in bed, it was close to 1 in the morning, and I was imagining being involved in AEW. That thought gave me such an excited feeling. I was so giddy I couldn’t even sleep. I loved the idea of coming to All Elite Wrestling, and that’s when I knew what I needed to do.”
