Dave Meltzer Details How AEW Got Double-Crossed In AAA-Dragon Lee-WWE Situation
The night Dragon Lee signed with WWE has become infamous for how it was revealed as Lee announced the next chapter of his career moments after he and Dralistico defeated FTR at AAA's final event of 2022, with AEW President Tony Khan not being aware of what was going to happen. On a recent edition of "Wrestling Observer Radio," Dave Meltzer detailed the story of everything went down, and who knew what.
"[FTR] were going to lose the titles to Rush and Dralistico, which is fine. Rush is Tony's guy, Dralistico had a good affiliation so that's fine. Then something happened and they were informed, they were told that it's not going to be Rush, it's going to be Dragon Lee, and Tony did know that Dragon Lee was going to WWE. I think that FTR I guess–this I didn't know, I didn't know FTR called him and said they smell something fishy because there's WWE cameras there. I did not know that part, in fact I'd never even heard that part. Anyway, the match happens, and the finish was supposed to be Dralistico winning over them, which is fine politically. For whatever reason, I don't know why or how, the finish was changed and it was Dragon Lee winning the fall...for the obvious reason."
Meltzer explained that Dragon Lee got in the ring, announced he would be vacating the titles, and joining WWE, something even the AAA announcers didn't know would happen. However, WWE cameras and other journalists were on hand to get footage and pictures of Lee making the announcement, all while holding a title that still had FTR's names on them, meaning that the entire situation had been set up by WWE and AAA officials. Meltzer went on to explain that this was the beginning of the end when it came to the relationship between AAA and AEW, and while they remained in contact with each other after this night, Khan would start a partnership with CMLL, which has ultimately proved to be more fruitful for AEW in the long run.
Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.