Surprising Details Revealed About AEW’s Offer To WWE’s Newest Star

At the 2026 Royal Rumble, a former AEW star made their first appearance in WWE.

Since the turn of the new year, multiple reports about Powerhouse Hobbs potentially jumping ship made the rounds. Fightful confirmed in late January that the 35-year-old had officially signed with the Stamford promotion.

During the men’s over-the-top rope elimination match, Hobbs made his entrance as the #14 participant, although under the name Royce Keys.

Lasting nearly 10 minutes in the bout, Keys managed to secure one elimination when he dumped Damian Priest by clotheslining him over the top rope onto the floor. He was ultimately eliminated by The Vision’s Bronson Reed.

His in-ring presence did not reveal much about his character or direction, so fans will be glued to see how the latest WWE signee does in his first year. While representing the Jacksonville company, Keys held the TNT Championship as well as the World Trios Championship once.

Details About AEW’s Offer To Royce Keys Revealed

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that Royce Keys received an offer from All Elite Wrestling before he decided to leave for WWE.

According to Meltzer, the offer was for a period of five years. Although the exact figure that WWE offered Keys is not known, the Tony Khan-led company’s counteroffer is said to be significantly high.

Had he accepted the offer, it would have placed him higher than most of the founding roster members from 2019.

The offer was a very good offer. — It was not a top 10 offer in the company or anything like that, but a good offer. I don’t really know much more, I don’t know what the WWE offer was. He got a great AEW offer to stay but I don’t know his WWE offer. The AEW offer was much higher than I would have expected. It would have been a number that I believe would have been higher than anyone but Chris Jericho earned in AEW’s first year in 2019.

It would be in line with what Bryan Danielson got to jump from WWE to AEW, maybe slightly less but in line. It would be more than guys the level Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were making four years ago (less than they are making now) and in the range of what a guy the level of Rollins were making around the same time and nearly triple of what many significantly high WWE stars were making in the first year or so of AEW after the first round of increases had taken place. [H/T: WrestlingNews.co]