In a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet, Anthony Bowens revealed that he attended a WWE tryout in 2015. A few years later, WWE told him they were interested in hiring him for the company in 2018, but he never heard from them.
“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.”
A few years later, he would end up in AEW and found success as part of The Acclaimed. WWE came calling again.
“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.”
Quotes via SportsKeeda