Ex-AEW Star Open To WWE Move After Previous Rejection
AEW and WWE have both seen their fair share of talent move to the other side and now it seems one star who has just left Tony Khan’s company is open to offers.
Mike Santana’s time in AEW has come to an end and he’s leaving himself open to offers for his future including any that might come from WWE.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Santana revealed that prior to joining AEW, he and then tag team partner Ortiz had a chance to sign with WWE but turned it down after giving their word to Cody Rhodes they would join Tony Khan’s upstart outfit:
Oh, yeah. When our contracts were coming up with TNA there was interest with AEW and WWE. We had spoken to WWE extensively and they made it very hard for us to turn them down. But our thing was, so Cody was the one who hired us right and we had already before anything we had spoken a while back and we had given Cody our word before, and our word is everything.
So by that point, they asked, ‘Hey, have you signed anything?’ And we’re like, no but we gave our word and we would like to stick to that.
At the time we both had young children and we wanted to see them grow up and the schedule was much easier with AEW. Plus the opportunity to be part of history, be a part of something that was brand new and fresh and be at the ground level.
Mike Santana Open To WWE Move After AEW Exit
Mike Santana is now a free agent and admits he’d be open to working for WWE now but he’s not going to be happy anywhere just being another name on a roster:
I’ve had some discussions. I’ve been very open with everybody. Right now is just going where I’m going to be able to grow the most. I don’t want to just be another guy on the roster. I already did that,I want to be part of something, I want to do something special.
Thankfully, I’ve been smart with money and I’m not hurting and I’m taking my time with things and you know, I just want to have fun.
Santana also claimed that he knew from day one in AEW that Cody Rhodes would eventually rejoin WWE and noted that there is another AEW star on the roster that he also expects to jump to WWE.