AEW Name Comments On Being ‘Hidden Away’ Prior To Shock Debut

AEW

While AEW’s latest signing Roderick Strong may currently be the talk of the wrestling world, one of their other recent arrivals Nigel McGuinness caught a similar buzz when he arrived at ROH’s Supercard of Honor on March 31.

McGuinness’ signing with AEW and new role on the ROH brand was welcomed by fans due to his historic ties to the promotion and was McGuinness’ first role since being released from WWE in late 2022.

In a recent conversation with Stephanie Chase, McGuinness would discuss how his AEW arrival came to be following his WWE exit.

McGuinness explained:

“I mean, it’s a long story. I won’t bore you with the minutiae.

“I reached out, obviously when I was a free agent and there was some legalities to sort of square away but once that was all clear and done and dusted, we discussed things for me coming in for Supercard of Honor, as being the Ring of Honor stalwart that I am.

“Come in and do part of that but then, he (Tony Khan) just called me up actually. It was Tuesday of last week and said, ‘Do you wanna go to New York today?’.

“And I was like, ‘I’ll check, see if I can’ but sure enough, by 4 o’clock that afternoon, me and Tony and his business partner Bernie (Cahill) were on his private jet heading to New York, New York.

“So that was where we sort of squared away the majority of the details and from then, I was, as you said, All Elite, graphic included.”

As for the night McGuinness debuted, Supercard of Honor, the former ROH Champion detailed how his appearance at the show was kept under wraps prior to him coming through the curtain.

McGuinness revealed:

“It was very exciting (being at ROH Supercard of Honor) in the sense of, I thought about it for a while. Obviously, as soon as Tony (Khan) came on with AEW and got them going, everybody in the business thinks, oh, maybe at some point I could work there, you know? And so, it was exciting in that respect but at the same time, I didn’t get to be backstage before the show.

“They kept me in one of the production trucks and no one knew I was gonna be there so I was kind of just sat back there with my girlfriend, going over notes, getting ready for the show, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

“So it was very nerve-wracking in that regard but once I walked out on stage — people have said to me, ‘You look the most like you that we’ve seen you in like a decade,’ you know? And there’s certainly something to that.

“It’s a different environment and I think Ring of Honor is viewed very differently in AEW obviously than in WWE for various reasons and so, yeah, I felt like I had that more cachet from being a world champion there than I had in the past.”

McGuinness did recently appear on AEW Dynamite alongside Tony Khan and Adam Cole to make the announcement of All In at Wembley Stadium.

In the press release announcing All In, McGuinness’ AEW role was described as a “host”.

McGuinness would recently discuss potentially coming out of retirement for AEW’s overseas debut from Wembley on August 27, click here to find out more.

Transcript courtesy of POST Wrestling.

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• nigel mcguinness
• ROH
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