Anthony Bowens Was Offered WWE Contract Prior To Signing With AEW

Anthony Bowens has become one of the more popular wrestlers in AEW. He started his professional wrestling career in 2014, and quickly made a name for himself on the independent wrestling scene. He made his AEW debut in 2019 and has since become a regular performer on the company’s weekly show, Dynamite. After a couple of appearances for the company, Tony Khan announced in 2020 that he and Max Caster signed five-year contracts with the company. It was also announced that the two of them would form a tag team called The Acclaimed.

Since then, Anthony Bowens and Max Caster are the fastest-growing home-grown tag team in AEW. Their charisma and personality have helped them get over with the fans.

In fact, The Acclaimed are one of the most popular tag teams in the world and is responsible for starting the “Scissor Me” movement in professional wrestling. This almost never came to be as Anthony Bowens once agreed to work for a rival promotion.

Anthony Bowens recently spoke to Chris Van Vliet were he explained where he explained that he had a tryout with WWE in 2015. Few years later, WWE informed him that they were looking to bring him into the company in 2018 but he didn’t hear back from them on that front.

“So I had a tryout with them [WWE] in 2015 at the Arnold Classic. I did well enough there, they invited myself and Bianca [Belair] to the Performance Centre.

They told me ‘not right now, keep in touch’. I kept in touch and then randomly in 2017 I got hit up, ‘hey, we’re looking to bring you in 2018’.

So I started preparing I did the background, I did everything. The only thing I needed was just the contract, and it never came. And I would check in every six months, like hey, this is what you told me to work on’. Nothing.

And then, budget issues. There’s no room, like how is there no room, you know, just hired 50 people, there’s clearly room. But they ghosted me really for three years.”

Anthony Bowens went on to say that while he was working Dark, WWE expressed interest again and even offered him a contract, but they never sent it to him. He signed with AEW after that, and the rest is history.

“And then I did Dark, and then right after Dark, they hit me back up. They hit me back up and they asked if I was a free agent, which I said I was. They ended up offering me a contract. I said yes. But then they never sent me a contract.

And in that timeframe, Tony had found out and he wanted me to go meet with him. And unbeknownst to me, I guess something similar was happening with Caster.

So I felt like well, you know, this is kind of the second time that this has happened, where I haven’t gotten what I needed to so I might as well hear this guy out.

So everything was just telling me I needed to go to AEW. So once they presented us with a contract, I signed it and I told WWE unfortunately I had to pass on their offer, I was never sent anything.”

WWE’s loss turned out to be AEW’s gain as The Acclaimed are one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling at the moment. They are on a meteoric rise and will have a big role to play in the future of AEW’s tag team division. Stay tuned to Ringside News as we bring you similar stories.

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