During a recent interview on the Keepin’ It 100 Podcast with Konnan (transcribed by Post Wrestling), reigning NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion, Nick Aldis revealed that he had turned down an exclusive deal with AEW in January of 2019. During the interview ‘The National Treasure’ cited a desire to work for NWA and an insufficient monetary offer as reasons behind his rejection of AEW’s exclusive contract, speaking to Konnan he said:
“At that time, Tony [Khan] did not make that an option [to work in AEW and the NWA at the same time]. I did [ask] though. That was the first thing I asked for and he wanted exclusive. It was a long time ago. It was January of 2019 that Tony set up a call and look, I appreciated it. It’s nice to be desired, right? And we had a long conversation, but he trusted me because he told me then that they had the deal with TNT and it was starting in the Fall and all these things that ended up happening and it’s like, he trusted me enough and I respected that, the professionalism and telling me these things and look, it’s Keepin It 100, if the money had been right, I would’ve had to go, you know what I mean? I would’ve had to been like, ‘Look, it’s great to have passion, it’s great to believe in what you’re doing’ but ultimately if the money was too good to be true — it was a fine offer but not — it was the same as what [I] was making. Billy [Corgan] bumped my money up. He bumped my money up a couple of times.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyLOsiFu8xg
Aldis has previously performed within the AEW umbrella appearing at ‘ALL IN’ in September 2018 unsuccessfully defending his NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship against Cody in a critically acclaimed match.
Since then Nick Aldis has continued to work with NWA as a figurehead on NWA POWERRR throughout its first three seasons. Aldis is currently NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion having just surpassed the two-year mark as champion, a reign that sees him enter the same category of NWA Champion as WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion Ric Flair.
NWA’s Billy Corgan announced in March 2020 that tapings of NWA POWERRR were suspended due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, rumours have since circulated regarding the likelihood of POWERRR returning for a 4th season with Corgan most recently stating on an Instagram post:
“Today we’re talking about bringing NWA POWERRR back very soon, even if that means no fans present, because we want to go back to work…”
Fans remain hopeful that POWERRR will resume and that NWA can continue to provide an entertaining product that appeals to the purist nature of their fan-base with a focus on storytelling and a more realistic grounded style of performing.
The latest news and updates on NWA Powerrr are available on ITRWrestling.com.