Anthony Bowens Said Yes To WWE Before Signing With AEW
Anthony Bowens is a top star in AEW, but he almost signed with a different promotion before joining Tony Khan's company.
Bowens was recently a guest on the "Chrissy Chaos" podcast, where he revealed that he agreed to join WWE before officially signing with AEW in November 2020. The former AEW Tag Team Champion made his AEW in-ring debut on the October 6, 2020, episode of "AEW Dark," which was taped on September 25.
"We weren't there for the very first couple of months, weren't there for the ground floor, but we are the foundation of AEW and it could have been the other way around," Bowens revealed. "I found myself in a position where I was lucky enough to be able to choose, whether I went to WWE or AEW. Actually, I said yes to WWE, and then Tony [Khan] found out and flew me down there."
Bowens later revealed that the first time he met his tag team partner Max Caster was after Khan flew him down to Jacksonville.
The Acclaimed Have Arrived
The Acclaimed wrestled together that same night on "AEW Dark" against The Best Friends and were then given their contracts.
"That's when I met Max, my tag team partner, Max Caster, for the first time and he was like, 'Hey, we've got this idea for ... or I got this idea for you to be The Acclaimed,' and I was like, 'That's awesome.' I don't know what it is, but cool, that's really awesome. We went out, we wrestled that night, and then he came back and he was like, 'Here's your contracts' and I signed it right away."
The Acclaimed has become one of AEW's most popular tag teams and even held the AEW World Tag Team titles for 140 days, before losing them in February to The Gunns (Austin and Colten Gunn). The Gunns would later lose the titles to the current champions, FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) in April.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Chrissy Chaos" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.