NWA world’s champion Nick Aldis was a recent guest on Keepin It 100 with lucha-libre legend Konnan to talk all things pro-wrestling. The National Treasure revealed during his interview that he nearly signed with AEW back in 2019, but that the money offer, although good, was not better than his NWA contract. He does go on to commend president Tony Khan for his professionalism. Highlights are below.
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.
Aldis’ time with AEW may still come, as the promotion and the NWA have forged a temporary alliance and featured NWA women’s champion Thunder Rosa on weekly television. Check out the full interview here
. (H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)