AEW has been signing up some free agents who were said to have had interest from WWE. Mariah May and Will Ospreay are two of the latest signings. On the latest “Hall of Fame” podcast, NXT’s Booker T was asked if thinks WWE will sign CM Punk, Kazuchika Okada, and/or Mercedes Mone, since AEW has re-signed The Elite and possibly MJF.
“I really don’t think WWE is going to start making moves because of AEW signings. I just don’t think that’s going to happen. The reason why I don’t think that’s going to happen is that wasn’t the blueprint when WCW started hiring guys. They just let WCW hire everybody out there. They didn’t care. They had their core guys and they were going to ride on those core guys and those guys were good enough to ride on.”
“I think WWE right now, the talent in WWE, I think we got good enough talent to actually ride on and compete against any wrestling company in the world. I mean, I could be wrong. I could be wrong, but I don’t think WWE is selling wrestling matches. I just don’t. I mean, the wrestling matches are the means to an end. That’s the payoff, but I don’t think WWE is truly selling wrestling. WWE is selling entertainment every week and hopefully, somebody will wise up and realize that this is the entertainment business.”
“I mean of course wrestling is on the marquee, but the real wrestlers are in the UFC. The real wrestlers are, you know, those collegiate guys, NCAA, all that kind of stuff. What we do is performing art and I really would implore these guys to understand to make it to that next level, you got to be entertaining, and I say that because when I came from WCW, I was a wrestler. I could do anything in the middle of that ring, but I wasn’t an entertainment guy. Once I started learning how to do it, that’s when I started getting over. That’s when I started really making money. I say that, you know, from this perspective because everybody that has made it to that level has been able to entertain. I look at Kurt Angle and what I always think about is Kurt Angle with that little cowboy hat and that ukulele, you know, this is an Olympic Gold Medalist who won with a broken frickin neck. So my thing is, if you don’t adapt to being an entertainer in this business, you’re not going to last very long.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Hall of Fame with Booker T & Brad Gilmore with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
