Top Indie Star Reveals They Turned Down AEW Contract

AEW has a lot of momentum behind them, but not everyone can be tempted with an All Elite Wrestling dean.

While speaking to Daily DDT, NWA Champion Nick Aldis revealed that he was made an offer by AEW. However, he countered their offer by saying that he would like to continue working with the NWA as well. This obviously didn’t work out so both sides had to close things for now.

“I’ll tell you the truth: I was made an offer by AEW. I counter-offered with, ‘I’d like to be able to do both.’ I’d like to work with them because obviously I have great admiration for Cody and the Bucks for what they’ve been able to do. But I wasn’t prepared to walk away from the two years of work I’ve done with the NWA. And that was that. I left it open with, ‘If you can find a way to keep doing this and do your show, I’ll do your show.’ They essentially wanted to offer me a contract and have me walk away from what I’m doing here and I said that doesn’t make any sense to me. Really, there’s no reason to. It’s just a hangover from the way things have always been done. Obviously, we hear this ‘Change the World’ phrase a lot, but that was my pitch to them. ‘If you really want to change the world, why can’t we do that?’”

“Because that really would be a change for one guy to work there but also come here. I’m still on very good terms with Cody and the Bucks and I had a very nice conversation with Tony [Khan] and everyone was aware of it. Billy and Dave were aware of it. At the time, my stance was if I can do both, then I’ll do it and I think that as it shakes out and everyone starts to realize the demand that will be on them with cable TV and stuff like that, those possibilities will be way more apparent in the next coming year for some guys.”

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They are obviously on good terms with each other so there’s no hard feelings. However, Nick Aldis is very proud of his involvement with the NWA and has carried the NWA World Heavyweight Title with pride. It’s a shame they couldn’t work something out, but you can never say never in pro wrestling.