Nick Aldis recently joined the “Keepin’ It 100 with Konnan” podcast, where he spoke about his negotiations with All Elite Wrestling and AEW President Tony Khan. According to the NWA superstar, Aldis would have joined All Elite Wrestling in 2019, but it seems as if the money being discussed wasn’t enticing enough.
“At that time, Tony [Khan] did not make that an option [to work in AEW and the NWA at the same time]. I did [ask] though. That was the first thing I asked for and he wanted exclusive,” he said (transcription via Post Wrestling’s Andrew Thompson). “It was a long time ago. It was January of 2019 that Tony set up a call and look, I appreciated it. It’s nice to be desired, right? And we had a long conversation, but he trusted me because he told me then that they had the deal with TNT and it was starting in the Fall and all these things that ended up happening and it’s like, he trusted me enough and I respected that, the professionalism and telling me these things and look, it’s Keepin It 100, if the money had been right, I would’ve had to go, you know what I mean? I would’ve had to been like, ‘Look, it’s great to have passion, it’s great to believe in what you’re doing’ but ultimately if the money was too good to be true — it was a fine offer but not — it was the same as what [I] was making. Billy [Corgan] bumped my money up. He bumped my money up a couple of times.”
From the sounds of it, it seems as if Aldis was ready to join AEW, but the money simply wasn’t up to what he was looking for. It would’ve been interesting to see what Aldis would have done in the world of All Elite Wrestling, but it seems as if it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, Aldis is currently dominating his time in the National Wrestling Alliance, where he is the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion.
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