AEW officials reportedly “have issues” with AAA regarding Dragon Lee’s WWE signing in December.
FTR handed over the AAA World Tag Team Titles to Dragon Lee and Dralistico at the AAA Noche de Campeones event on December 28. Following the match, Lee relinquished his title and announced his signing with WWE.
In an update, the Wrestling Observer reports that AAA is hoping to have either Kota Ibushi or AEW World Trios Champion Kenny Omega come challenge AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo at one of the upcoming TripleMania events, but landing Omega may be difficult due to AEW’s displeasure with how the Lee situation played out.
While AEW President Tony Khan was aware of Lee’s signing with WWE because he also negotiated with Lee, AEW officials were apparently unhappy with how FTR lost to Lee and Dralistico. While still in the ring, Lee announced that he was going to WWE. WWE had a story ready with ESPN with footage of Lee, now a WWE talent, defeating one of AEW’s top tag teams. To win the match, Lee even pinned Dax Harwood.
It was noted that Khan must have been told at some point that Rush and Dralistico would defeat FTR, which was fine because it was an AEW talent winning. It also made sense for AAA because they would have tag team champions who defeated FTR and could be used going forward, which was not the case with Lee because he left the company and had to relinquish his title. When everything fell apart, AAA’s position was that Lee and Dralistico were the pushed team, and that was the advertised match, even though it didn’t make much booking sense for Lee to win the title and then have to relinquish it.
The Observer noted that things needed to be smoothed out between AAA and AEW because AAA booked the match as a favor to WWE, and WWE went along with things, at least partially, to rub AEW in the face based on how the scenario was orchestrated. AAA booker Konnan reportedly traveled to Orlando on January 28 to try to resolve the situation, but no word on how that went.
Lee chose WWE over AEW because his brother Rush had signed with AEW, and because Mexican talents have recently shied away from WWE for AEW, as well as how they have been treated historically in WWE. The fact is that AEW has a lot of wrestlers who aren’t being used, and Lee figured he’d be used well in WWE NXT for a year, then he could go to the main roster and make a lot of money.
