During AAA’s Gira Aniversario XXX Noche De Campeones event, La Faccion Ingobernable consisting of Dragon Lee & Dralistico defeated FTR for the AAA World Tag Team Championship. While that was surprising enough, the wrestling world was shocked when it was announced that Dragon Lee, a former ROH regular and AEW alumni, had signed with WWE to be part of NXT.
And now, to add to the surprise, which saw the duo vacate the belts to due Lee’s WWE signing, Dave Meltzer has reported on Wrestling Observer Radio that Lee actually picked WWE over AEW. This is despite WWE’s track record of pushing luchadors not being great and the fact AEW would have likely paid him more money.
He was working in Mexico; there is really not a lot of money in Mexico. He had a tryout with WWE, AEW wanted him as well, and he was talking to various people, and it’s not. It’s funny because I always see people going for big money, and he is where the money is, and his deal was not. I mean, it’s a bigger money deal than Mexico, but it is not any kind of big money deal. I mean, he is getting NXT money, he is not getting main roster money.
The situation is that he talked to several people, he was asking several people, a lot of different people, what’s better for me. AEW or WWE, and it’s funny, a year ago, most of the people would have said AEW for sure, but in fact, they said WWE, and I don’t if they are wrong. The one thing is that if you look at the current scene now, if he went to AEW…he would probably go in with probably more money, not appreciably more, but more money.
Dave Meltzer via WORHow much the money would have been different between NXT and AEW is unknown. However, when AEW was starting up, they offered wrestlers without a big name like Orange Cassidy or Joey Janela, $100,000 a year. In comparison, NXT is known to have been paying circa $75,000 a year at that time. Nevertheless, things did change with main roster talents like Mandy Rose joined NXT 2.0, with it believed she was making $250,000 prior to being released.
