WWE Called Anthony Bowens About NXT After His AEW Debut

AEW has a few stars on their roster that WWE wouldn’t mind having around. The funny part is that WWE only called The Acclaimed’s Anthony Bowens after he appeared for All Elite Wrestling, ending a three-year period of radio silence between the two parties.

While having a conversation on AEW Unrestricted, Anthony Bowens revealed that WWE called him up after he worked for AEW. Tony Khan heard about that and he took action by inviting Bowens down for a meeting. It didn’t take very long at all for The Acclaimed to become All Elite.

“I never really went into specifics about what technically happened. Essentially, I had a dark match, and the next day I was approached by NXT about coming down there after they ghosted me for three years. I didn’t hear anything back from AEW directly after the match because sometimes Dark airs about a week or two afterwards, or at least in the pandemic world. I said, ‘Yes.’”

“Somehow that trickled back to Tony Khan. Tony found out about it and then brought me down there a week later, and I had a long conversation with him and my tag team partner. The next thing you know, I’m with AEW which is where I wanted to be in the first place. There were a ton of life happenings in there that made the decision a lot easier, but there was a very anxiety filled two weeks being in a great situation, I guess, that every wrestler wants to be in. But it was the most anxiety-inducing two weeks I’ve ever had in my life, but I made the right decision, and I’m so excited to be in AEW.”

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The Acclaimed found a nice spot in the AEW tag team division and they are still working hard to move up those rankings. WWE could have signed Bowens to a contract years prior, but they never pulled the trigger on the idea. It just goes to show that sometimes you don’t want someone around until you realize how in demand they are elsewhere.

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Thanks to Wrestling News for the quote