Those Times Wrestlers Dodged Career-Killing Bullets

There was talk of AEW's The Elite potentially considering a move over to the land of sports entertainment as recently as last year, of course. 

However, while potentially agreeing to sign with WWE as a unit in 2023 may not have been a move that led to the killing of their careers, the same probably couldn't confidently be said the last time Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks in particular were thinking about joining the biggest wrestling promotion in the business.

Before AEW officially became a thing, those Elite members were actually seriously close to becoming sports entertainers. Matt Jackson even recalled to Chris Van Vliet (at 20:55 in the video below) how Kenny, Nick and himself all turned to each other after a phone call one day and said "I think we're all going to WWE."

Had Tony Khan not come in with the "right offer" at "the right time", giving the guys a chance to run their own company and hire their own people, it's not too hard to imagine a scenario where the Jackson boys and Omega simply became another set of gifted stars who were eventually/inevitably mishandled within that late 2010 - and rather broken - version of the WWE system.

The infamously intense schedule was also a big reason behind the Elite's call to turn down a WWE run. And not even the offer of a "limited schedule" could keep these lads from joining forces with Tony Khan and changing the business forever.