AEW star Will Ospreay recently explained why he chose AEW over WWE, citing the travel schedule as a factor.
In terms of WWE negotiations with Ospreay, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer wrote that people in WWE “seemingly expected the lure of WWE and Wrestlemania being enough of a deciding factor.”
Meltzer was told in November that “while nobody would say it publicly, they said Paul Levesque [Triple H] made an offer way too low” for Ospreay.
Meltzer stated the following on Wrestling Observer Radio while reviewing Ospreay’s promo from this week’s edition of Dynamite.
“I just think that if Paul Levesque is watching this, he’s going like, ‘Holy fuck’. They know he’s a good wrestler, but I don’t think they know that he’s the charismatic person and talker and can get over. Keep in mind, this is his… yeah he did a couple matches before and he certainly has a rep with the hardcore fans because he’s the best wrestler in the world. But he was in there in front of a lot of fans that were probably not regular AEW fans, including many that probably came to see Mercedes, and that guy was over like crazy after literally 2 matches on this run. And granted they were incredible matches, but it’s still 2 matches, he started just a couple weeks ago — and he’s getting this kind of reaction. I know people in WWE when this was going down – it was becoming very clear he was going to AEW and not WWE, and they (WWE) offered a lot less money. I know people there were going like, ‘He [Triple H] didn’t realize’. They knew, but he just didn’t realize. He just thought, ‘Ah, he’s one of these great workers’.”
(quote courtesy of WrestlePurists.com)
