Names Of More AEW Stars Contacted By WWE Revealed

AEW/WWE

It was reported by Fightful Select last month that several current AEW stars had been contacted by people within WWE about a potential return to the company once their AEW deals were up.

The reported stated that a former WWE star currently in AEW was contacted by the WWE talent relations, referred WWE’s contact to their attorney, as well as to AEW management. This has since been confirmed by higher ups in AEW, though that former WWE star was far from the only name contacted.

Fightful Select (subscription required) has provided an update on some of the names that were contacted by WWE from AEW. The first, as reported by the Wrestling Observer, is Malakai Black, with Fightful stating that WWE sources over the past month said that he had indicated to contacts in the company that he wished he was still there.

Malakai Black is effectively done with AEW as of this moment, but his release came with an inability to compete for WWE for an extended period of time. Several people from within AEW management were under the impression that Black wanted to return to WWE, while there were also higher ups in AEW that are of the ‘if they want to go, let them’ mentality.

As well as Malakai, a source within WWE also stated to Fightful that they had heard that feelers were sent out to Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood of FTR. FTR still have a while left on their AEW contracts, but spent years in the WWE system working with Triple H, who put the two together during their time in NXT. The company made multiple efforts to re-sign the former Revival when their contracts were coming up under the Vince McMahon regime, but they opted instead to join AEW.

Another former WWE name that is widely known within AEW to have been contacted by WWE is former AEW World Tag Team Champion Swerve Strickland, who was released alongside the rest of Hit Row last November. Swerve joined AEW back at Revolution, with the rest of Hit Row returning to WWE last month.

Finally, while Fightful was unable to provide an exact name, a source within AEW stated that WWE reached out in August to an AEW name who had been with the company since it’s inception, but that ‘even Fightful be surprised to learn’ who it was that they reached out to.

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• Malakai Black
• ftr
• AEW
• wwe

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