Bullet Club member El Phantasmo recently revealed that he almost signed a contract with AEW instead of NJPW.
During an interview with Speaking of Stong Style to promote WrestleKingdom 18, Phantasmo shared his experience, stating that he received an offer from AEW while wrestling Cody Rhodes, with Tony Khan present. At the time, AEW was just starting, and Phantasmo had multiple contract offers.
However, New Japan asked first and expressed their desire to have him join Bullet Club, Phantasmo attempted to contact Rhodes to talk but Rhodes didn’t respond to him.
It was funny, I was texting Cody Rhodes on WhatsApp and he didn’t respond. And then I was like, ‘Cody, like, I kinda need to talk to you,’ and he didn’t respond.
Tony Khan was like, ‘hey, what’s going on?’ and I was like, ‘well, he didn’t respond to me on WhatsApp.’ And then he f***ing called Cody backstage in front of everybody and was like, ‘what’s going on with ELP?’ I was like ‘dude, you didn’t respond on WhatsApp.’ And he was like, ‘sh*t, you’re the only person I talk to on WhatsApp!’ Kind of a funny story.
Ultimately, Phantasmo chose New Japan, as they were the first to approach him. Despite this, Phantasmo has made appearances in AEW, including last year’s AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view and this year’s event.
He has also achieved success in NJPW, holding three IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships and being one-half of the current NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team champions.
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H/t to Comicbook.com