AEW’s entry into the wrestling market had a major effect on WWE’s practices when it came to hiring and maintaining talent. Once AEW launched, WWE was no longer the only place to make big money wrestling and so both existing WWE superstars and potential signees had options available to them.
Such was the case for one AEW champion who tried to sign with WWE for years and actually had a WWE contract almost signed until he decided to go to “the competition”.
Anthony Bowens chased WWE for years, ended up going to AEW instead
Current AEW Tag Team Champion Anthony Bowens signed with AEW in November 2020 alongside his partner Max Caster. However, before that signing took place, Bowens wrestled extensively in the Tri-State area and even had one appearance on WWE NXT.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Bowens explained how hard it was to make any headway with getting signed by WWE despite having already worked for them beforehand.
“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 further elaborated that, despite the constant back-and-forth between WWE and himself, he was still interested. Eventually, he agreed to a contract, but the actual physical document he needed to sign to make it all official never came.
“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.”