10 WWE Castoffs Who Are Killing It In AEW

3. Tay Conti

Malakai Black
AEW

The inspiration for this list, Tay Conti was little more than an extra body in NXT, a wrestler getting a couple of small spots on weekly TV and little more. She showed flashes here and there, but she never really got the chance to grow.

Released in April 2020 as part of the COVID-19 budget cuts (in a year in which WWE would post record profits), Conti landed in AEW and slowly grew into a solid performer who has turned heads (literally and figuratively) during the past year. Watching her matches now, you can see she’s still in her formative years as a wrestler, but you also can see her confidence growing and her performances improving weekly.

Most recently, Tay competed for the AEW Women’s Championship at Full Gear, coming up short against Britt Baker, but still earning a PPV title shot, which is a far cry from where she was 18 months earlier.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.