AEW Champion Blasts WWE For Tarnishing His Legacy

One AEW star thinks WWE did its best to completely tarnish his legacy forever.

One star who has made the most of jumping across wrestling’s great divide is Ricochet. Since joining AEW, the star has let his personality shine as one of the most hated – and bald – heels on the show, but this has also translated into in-ring success as he became the inaugural AEW National Champion at Full Gear 2025.

Ricochet has become outspoken on social media with tribal wrestling fans as he sticks up for AEW in the face of ever-increasing criticism.

And there might be a good reason why, as he doesn’t see his WWE run as successful.

AEW’s Ricochet Hated WWE Main Roster Run

Like many stars of the 2010s, Ricochet caused a sensation on NXT, but when he was brought up to the WWE main roster on the same day as Aleister Black, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa in 2019, things didn’t really click for him.

Speaking on The Mark Hoke Show, Ricochet discussed how he thinks that promotion to the main roster did not work for him and, in fact, was the worst thing that’s happened in his career:

What should have been the biggest promotion in our industry… turned into something very different for Ricochet. I really do think that the day we got called to Raw was the worst thing that happened to Ricochet’s wrestling career.

That five years really tarnished Ricochet’s wrestling legacy… it completely changed the public’s image of who Ricochet was.