Tony Nese was released by WWE in June 2021 after being with the company since 2019. He made his in-ring debut on the November 3 episode of AEW Dark.
While speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Nese explained how quickly he was signed.
“That was a crazy day. I was showing up to meet Tony (Khan), to say hi, we were locals in Orlando. I was there to meet everyone, see if I could talk to Tony and stuff. I was standing outside of his office, just talking to a bunch of people, Adam Cole and a couple of others. He walks out, ‘Hey Tony, how are you doing? I’m a big fan. Literally, five minutes later, he’s like, do you want to sit out in the crowd?’ I took a step back and was, ‘You want me to be a fan? What’s going on? You want me to fill seats?’ I was super confused. ‘No, we’re going to put you out there, we’re going to make a big deal out of it, what’s Tony Nese doing here?’ Okay, great, I thought I was just here to hang out and talk to everyone. Minutes after that, they pulled me aside and talked to me, we talked out a deal and it literally was like 30 minutes before. ‘We’re going to put you out there and you’re going to sit out there the whole show.’ I sat out there. Luckily, nothing bad came out of this, but Lance Archer had an accident and for some reason, the truck’s first intention was to shoot Tony Nese. I see the red light and camera and go, ‘Oh no.’ I had so many options, I could make a face, maybe that’s a meme and everyone laughs, but in my head, I don’t know the severity of the situation, so the last thing I want to do is make something about me and all of a sudden we find out that someone is badly injured. Literally, I was like, ‘I have no idea what to do.’ I’m staring off in the distance, ‘Someone, please make that red light go away,” recalled Nese.
Quotes via Fightful
