AEW star Prince Nana recently appeared on an episode of Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including how he ended up signing with All Elite Wrestling.
Nana said, “AEW was a company that was kind of birthed through ROH at that particular point in time. That first All In show, I wasn’t a part of it, I wanted to be a part of it, but history was made. The years went by, and I was beginning to kind of lose my luster because I had parted from Ring of Honor, it was still owned by Sinclair, and I had to make a decision on whether I was going to continue trying to perform or get a job doing something else. Luckily, I touched base with a couple of good friends, Homicide, Cary Silkin, CD [Christopher Daniels], and Nick Buck [Nick Jackson] and these guys encouraged me. ‘There may not be an opportunity right now, but keep doing your thing, go out there and try to get some local and national bookings. Get your Embassy thing going.’ I took their advice, I did it, I did one dark match in New York with two local guys, it went well. Six months later, six months I was like, ‘I’m done. There is no going back to AEW. That was my little trinket,’ and then I’m in my basement, I’m there with one of my trusted advisors, sipping on some tea, shooting the shit, and out of the blue I get a text message. ‘How soon can you make it out to Boston?’ I jumped out of my seat.”
Nana also talked about how he paid $650 for an Uber from Brooklyn to Boston to make it in time to ROH’s Death Before Dishonor PPV.
“Everyone in the business knows that I don’t drive. I can drive, but I usually like to get driven. I looked at the schedule, it would have gotten me there at 8 PM. ‘We can’t do that, we need to get you here immediately.’ ‘I can jump in an Uber and be there in two or three hours.’ I’m in New York City, in Brooklyn. Did the pricing for the Uber, it came out to $650. ‘Let’s do it.’ One Uber car came by, he saw where I was going, and said, ‘Sorry, I can’t do it.’ The next one came, ‘Sorry, I can’t do it.’ Third guy came, I begged him, I got on my knees for the first time in my life, got down on my knees and begged the driver, ‘Can you please take me to Boston. I’ll do whatever you want. I have a big tip for you. This is very important.’ He saw it in my eyes, ‘Get in the car,’ and that’s when history was made. I made it to Boston, met Tony Khan, he hired me on the spot, and history was made.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
