Ex-AEW Star Confirms WWE Discussions
This major free agent has held talks with WWE.
One of the most talented free agents in the game right now, Mike Santana has revealed he's held talks with WWE since exiting AEW earlier in the year.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet (as per WrestleZone), Santana said the following when the topic of WWE came up:
"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."
For those who may have missed it, Mike Santana and AEW parted ways as February rolled into March, with the talent clearly unhappy with how the latter part of his AEW run played out.
After over a year on the shelf due to a torn ACL, Santana returned to AEW last August and was immediately dropped into All In's Stadium Stampede match. That was followed by a sadly underwhelming feud against long-time tag team partner Ortiz, with that feud bafflingly only playing out on the barely-watched AEW Rampage.
Even prior to this injury, there were said to be problems between Santana and Ortiz dating back to 2022. The pair's close friend - and manager during some of their TNA days - Konnan confirmed the two were "not on good terms", seemingly due to how Santana thought AEW should be doing more with the pair, while Ortiz was just happy to be in the position they were in.
Santana's final match for AEW came back in October - where he defeated Ortiz in the blow-off of their feud - but he's remained incredibly active on the independent scene in the past several months, wrestling as recently as last weekend for Top Talent Wrestling out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and currently reigning as the House of Glory World Champion.
Interestingly, this interview with Chris Van Vliet also saw Santana reveal that WWE made him and Ortiz an offer that was "very hard" to turn down back when the pair's TNA contracts were up in 2019. As the 33-year-old explained, while they'd not signed with AEW, the LAX tandem had already given their word to Cody Rhodes that they'd join the burgeoning promotion, plus the lighter AEW schedule would allow Santana and Ortiz to spend more time with their young children.
Per Santana:
"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, [WWE] asked, 'Hey, have you signed anything?' And we’re, like, 'No, but we gave our word and we would like to stick to that.'”
Given the sheer ability and potential of Mike Santana, one has to imagine that WWE and any other promotion of note will have interest in the New Yorker now that he's on the free agency market.