Nick Aldis Says He Turned Down AEW Offer To Stay With NWA

In an interview with Daily DDT, Nick Aldis revealed that he was given an offer to sign with AEW, but he turned it down because he didn’t want to leave the NWA. Here are highlights:

On getting an offer from AEW: “I’ll tell you the truth: I was made an offer by AEW. I counter-offered with, ‘I’d like to be able to do both.’ I’d like to work with them because obviously I have great admiration for Cody and the Bucks for what they’ve been able to do. But I wasn’t prepared to walk away from the two years of work I’ve done with the NWA. And that was that. I left it open with, ‘If you can find a way to keep doing this and do your show, I’ll do your show.’ They essentially wanted to offer me a contract and have me walk away from what I’m doing here and I said that doesn’t make any sense to me. Really, there’s no reason to. It’s just a hangover from the way things have always been done. Obviously, we hear this ‘Change the World’ phrase a lot, but that was my pitch to them. ‘If you really want to change the world, why can’t we do that?’

Because that really would be a change for one guy to work there but also come here. I’m still on very good terms with Cody and the Bucks and I had a very nice conversation with Tony [Khan] and everyone was aware of it. Billy and Dave were aware of it. At the time, my stance was if I can do both, then I’ll do it and I think that as it shakes out and everyone starts to realize the demand that will be on them with cable TV and stuff like that, those possibilities will be way more apparent in the next coming year for some guys.”

On returning to Impact in 2015: “Well, the short stint, it was never a contract. It always just a negotiated thing where they’d pay me this much and I’d go and do it. I knew Jeff [Jarrett] was having problems and I knew it was a chance for him to get back on the saddle and I believed he deserved to run the company and take on that product. I did it out of loyalty to Jeff. I don’t what the reality of the situation was, but at the time there were three things that factored into my decision to go back. One, the money was decent. Two, it was a favor to Jeff. And three, at the time it was implied it was a pathway for me to do the World of Sport show with ITV.

We even got as far as me walking out and doing a press conference with ITV and World of Sport. We were supposed to be working together and I don’t know how all of that changed and how all of that blew up, but honestly, I felt like I was used like a bargaining chip in that and they were also using that as a way to entice me and come on be on IMPACT as well. There was some dishonesty there, but I don’t where it fell apart, hence why I never signed a contract and I was just kind of going show by show and it was an option for me to work with Alberto [El Patron]. I’d always admired him and wanted to work with him and so that was the final thing before I said, “Okay, cool, I’ll come in and work with Alberto, that’s fine.” And that was that.”

On Eli Drake in NWA: “I had a big hand in bringing him into the NWA. He had at least two other offers, one from one of the companies you mentioned, and one from Ring of Honor. Dave made his pitch and Dave asked me to call him and basically tell him my experience because Eli saw what we had done with me and said, “I want that.” Why wouldn’t you? I called him and we had a good talk and I told him what I thought this could be for him long-term.

He’s a few years older than me, he’s 36 and I’m 32 and I’ve always had one eye on the future post-wrestling and I’m sure he kind of has that too because he’s a creative guy, he’s a smart guy with a good business brain and I’m sure he wants to have an option or at least the opportunity to work in behind-the-scenes role going forward if he wants to do that and it’s a seat at the table. I think we offer more than anyone else right now and we truly offer guys to tell their story the way they want it to be told. We have the least amount of cooks, the least amount of agendas, and I’m a partner in NWA. I’m not just the world champion. We’re very judicious with who we bring in as far as contracts go. We want guys who look good, who can talk, who can go and deliver the big moments and I think that Eli is that guy.”