Note On Benjamin Carter Reportedly Signing With WWE
As noted, Benjamin Carter, aka "The Prodigy of Pro Wrestling," has reportedly signed with the WWE. The news was broken by AEW star Miro, who confirmed on his Twitch channel that the young British wrestler had "gone to the dark side."
According to Dave Meltzer on The Wrestling Observer Radio, Carter's decision to sign with the WWE has a lot to do with the ongoing pandemic since independent wrestlers are no longer able to travel the world and perform on multiple shows. In recent years, this has been the norm for young wrestlers, who have typically wrestled on the global indie circuit until their early-to-mid 20s before signing with one of the bigger promotions such as WWE, AEW, NJPW, Impact Wrestling, or ROH.
Similarly, other U.K. stars such as Nigel McGuinness and William Regal wrestled for years on the British indie scene before arriving in the U.S. to join Ring of Honor and WCW, respectively. Carter told BBC in an interview last year that his big break came with a soccer scholarship to the U.S. Once he entered the country, he traveled to Iowa to train at the The Black & The Brave Wrestling Academy, under the mentorship of WWE Superstar Seth Rollins.
"He's already really good but he could get a lot better by wrestling a few more years in the indies," Meltzer said on Friday.
Meltzer also noted that he is unaware if AEW made an offer to Carter, who wrestled several matches on AEW Dark and made one televised appearance during last month's one-hour edition of AEW Late Night Dynamite, in a loss to Scorpio Sky. However, Fightful Select reported earlier this week that both WWE and AEW were in pursuit of signing Carter, who remained a free agent since testing positive for COVID-19 last month.
Although it cannot be confirmed, Meltzer expects WWE to start out Carter in NXT UK.
Neither WWE nor Carter has yet to confirm the signing. However, Carter did share a video on his Twitter on Friday in which he speaks about why it has always been his dream to wrestle for WWE.