The wrestling world has been buzzing about CM Punk’s potential return to the ring, presumably in AEW, but this speculation hasn’t been confirmed yet. Still, AEW continues to bring in other notable names, and in a recent interview with the New York Post, company president Tony Khan spoke highly of Malakai Black and Andrade El Idolo.
Both former WWE stars have quickly taken prominent spots in AEW; Black is already feuding with Cody Rhodes, one of the faces of the company, and Andrade is engaged in a rivalry with Death Triangle. In the interview, Khan explained how “the sky is thelimit” for both stars, as he thinks both men can become huge names in AEW.
“They have huge, huge potential,” said Khan. “They’re both well known wrestling stars already, and we’ve had some good success already in AEW in terms of people arriving. They had wrestled on a national stage before, they wanted to redefine their career and I love working with people like that. I love working with motivated people that really care that are passionate about wrestling.
“I think in the case of both Malakai Black and Andrade El Idolo, they’re very different, they’re both huge stars in my opinion. They both have potential to become bigger stars and box office attractions for us.”
The early stretch of Andrade’s AEW run generated even more buzz when the company brought Chavo Guerrero Jr. in to work with him. Khan noted how Andrade pitched his alliance with Vickie Guerrero, but the AEW president came up with the idea to pair him with Chavo.
“It was his idea to make the connection with the Guerreros and he had asked about using Vickie,” said Khan. “It was my idea to bring in Chavo. I thought Chavo would really add something. I’d seen Chavo recently on an independent show. He was in great shape and we had talked about associating because Andrade El Idolo comes from a very famous wrestling family.”
“He wanted to be associated with that [the Guerreros] and Vickie was here. As we went on I wanted to add something to the presentation and I couldn’t put my finger on what, and then I saw Chavo on an independent show and I just had a light bulb moment.”
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