10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 2018
1. What Cody & The Young Bucks Passed On To Launch All Elite Wrestling
AEW Executive Vice Presidents Cody and The Young Bucks had insane opportunities to return to WWE just months before forging ahead with All Elite Wrestling.
The EVPs and fellow Elite member Hangman Page rejected incomparable WWE terms to go it alone with their new company in late-2018, with WWE perhaps not fully aware of what exactly it was the wrestlers were cooking up.
Reporting on it at the time, Dave Meltzer noted that the deals offered huge financial incentives, and opt-outs, and creative fulfilment on NXT and the main roster, and a WWE Network home for the group's popular Being The Elite vehicle. He said;
"The problem was the success of All In changed the value structure. Paul Levesque worked hard at getting all four into WWE. Page was offered main roster money to work NXT, where he’d have been pushed as one of its top stars. The Bucks & Cody were offered strong deals. The Bucks deal was for money roughly the same as WWE champion AJ Styles, which would have also included BTE being made a regular weekly show on the WWE Network, as well as something I’ve never heard WWE concede on, which was a six-month window where they could have left their three-year contract if they wanted and weren’t happy with their push."
It wasn't to be, of course, and in 2019 the group would make good on their promises to "change the world".