We reported last week that Dave Meltzer said that “virtualy everyone” at WWE had contacted AEW for a promotion switch at some point.
It seems the requests are not a one way street. Its being reported by Vince Russo and Billi Bhatti that AEW Executive Vice President, Cody, has emailed people within Vince McMahons company to enquire whether they would be interested in Joining AEW.
On the Brand podcast Russo said that Bhattie had been forwarded emails from people within WWE that were sent by Cody. In the emails he asked WWE superstars if they were interested in switching to Tony Khan’s promotion:
“Billi was given emails by talent — WWE talent direct from Cody Rhodes just having a little conversation with them to see if they’d be interested in coming to AEW, and bro they gotta go about it that way because it’s kinda friends talking to friends there’s no breaking contracts or anything like that. Billi himself saw the email from Cody to various talent.”
Cody is not the only AEW star who is contacting his former promotion to convince wreslters to jump ship. Chris Jericho has rvealed that he contacted Brodie Lee about joining AEW before he had even left WWE.
Speaking on his Saturday Night Special live stream, self-proclaimed DemoGod, Chris Jericho revealed that he contacted Brodie Lee back in April 2019 when he was called Luke Harper. He was offered the move several months before he was released from WWE.
“I was a big fan of his from the start. The moment that he asked for his release from the WWE, about a year and a half ago, I contacted him. And of course they never gave him his release, so, he went on his merry way. And then the moment he actually did get his release, we made sure that he came to work for us. There’s a lot of pluses for him – we love him, he’s great.”
It worked out a good move for Lee. The Dark Order leader squashed Cody last week on Dynamite to become the new TNT Champion. It seems the change in promotion has given him opportunities that were never provided by Vince McMahon and his company.
