10 AEW Wrestlers You Won’t Believe WWE Passed On

9. Sammy Guevara

Sammy Guevara has flourished and stood out in AEW as a member of The Inner Circle for matches that regularly attract 3-4 stars in the Wrestling Observer, as well as for noteworthy angles like crushing Darby Allin's throat with a skateboard and hilariously being run over by a golf kart in the middle of a street fight.

Considering his young age at 27, you can only expect him to get better in the ring and outside of it, and be a major player for AEW in the future. His work has even led to praise from Randy Orton, who openly spoke on how he wanted to one day work with him.

Prior to AEW, Sammy competed in a few dark matches for WWE. He wrestled Primo & Epico as The Los Matadores at one point, which the referee of the bout according to Sammy went out of his way to call “the greatest dark match he has ever seen.” His performance led to praise from Mark Henry backstage and a proper tryout for WWE with other recruits in front of influential personnel like William Regal and Norman Smiley.

But Sammy has spoken in recent years how the whole experience put him off signing with WWE, commenting on Talk is Jericho:

“I don’t think any wrestler got signed. I think a collegiate wrestler got signed. It felt that if you want to do this for a living f**k you, but these models, ex-football players they treated them really good and almost shame on you for actually wanting to be a wrestler. It seemed like when the cameras were on they really played it up. It felt like a whole gimmick to me because everyone was chill until the cameras were on and suddenly they start drilling and yelling at you. I’m like, alright, I see what this is. It definitely opened up my eyes because I wouldn’t want to be there, maybe not ever, but certainly not now just because of the way they treated me. Maybe it’s different now, I don’t know, but during that time I saw that unless I was a somebody it’s going to be hell here.”