The Elite’s decision to stay with All Elite Wrestling rather than join WWE was not as straightforward as some may believe.
AEW signed new multi-year contracts with Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and Hangman Page. They signed their contracts a few weeks ago, but the specifics are uncertain.
WWE was interested in all four wrestlers, particularly Omega, but the majority of them chose AEW because of the reduced touring schedule.
Dave Meltzer mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio that they went with a majority vote to decide where they were going and had considered jumping ship to WWE.
“No, not going anywhere. For people who think that there’s like, I mean, and I, you know, whatever that, that there’s like Tony Khan is, whatever, you know, like losing any interest or cutting back. Like one of the things, like, as you would, you would not be seeing, I mean like, again, to get them to sign this early because they were willing to play both sides against each other. I mean, that’s, that was the deal. So he had to put up a great offer to get this thing signed. Now, they actually made the deal. I don’t. I would; it was a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know the date, but I do know the deal was already made. and he told them to keep quiet on it because he wanted to announce it on August 2nd in conjunction with the 200th episode of Dynamite. And there’s actually a lot of news today. You know, all over the world, really. I mean, just regarding, you know, AEW there was a Portico article. There was Tony Khan, responding to Paul Levesque’s claim, you know, a thing on the Cody Rhodes special. There was the Sports Illustrated article, you know, with the announcement of the signing. And, I mean, one thing as far as the signing goes is, is that the four guys had made a pact that they were gonna stick together, whether it would be in WWE or AEW, and they basically had made an agreement that it was gonna be majority rules and, it had gone back and forth, but essentially, you know, whatever it was, I don’t know if it’s three of the four or four of the four, made the deal.
But they all agreed that they would go together as a group either to WWE or stay as a group. So it was not going to be a split up. And, views changed. You know, people who think that it was like, ‘Oh, they were never gonna go or anything like that.’ There were discussions. There were votes that changed. There were things that happened since this pact was made, and I think the pact was made sometime back, but they are going to be in, and in the case of, you know, it’s a multi-year deal. Have you heard that? All four?
Yeah, I don’t have it confirmed either. And it’s supposed to be a secret, whatever the number is. I do know that, you know, as far as the length of the, of the, of the stay. The numbers financially were very high because if they weren’t very high, they wouldn’t have signed at this point because they had until the end of the year to negotiate. And so obviously, a w and Tony wanted them signed now and made it worth their while, financially, to sign now, which the point of all this is that he did the same thing with RUSH, is that he is not shying away from spending money whatsoever. You know, it’s not like that. There are thoughts of cutting back or anything like that. You know, as far as like that.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
