AEW Rumors: Company close to signing former WWE Women’s Division target?
AEW are reportedly close to signing Kris Statlander, who had previously been linked to a WWE NXT deal and has already made two appearances for the new wrestling promotion.
Although AEW have preached patience, it’s obvious that they need to start taking women’s wrestling more seriously. AEW Dark is a fine show, but there’s no reason why the promotion can’t do a better job of allotting more television time for their talented women’s division, which could also use some more additions.
According to a report from the Wrestling Observer News’s Dave Meltzer, via WhatCulture’s Andrew Murray, AEW are expected to land Kris Statlander over WWE.
Per Meltzer, WWE did indeed show interest in Statlander, who was thought to have signed an NXT contract with the company after making an appearance on SmackDown Live earlier this year after WrestleMania. (Her tag team, the Brooklyn Belles, faced the newly-minted champions The IIconics).
However, WWE reportedly took too long to send Statlander an actual contract offer, believing she’d show up to the Performance Center as part of the January 2020 class.
Instead, Statlander has made two appearances for AEW this month. First, she teamed up with the incredible “Big Swole” against signed top stars Britt Baker and Riho on Nov. 13’s episode of AEW Dark. She then had a match this week on the ninth episode of AEW Dynamite, joining forces with another standout in Hikaru Shida against heels Emi Sakura and Bea Priestely.
Statlander has been one of wrestling’s biggest breakout stars in 2019. In addition to her appearances for AEW and WWE, she debuted at SHINE in September. An accomplished tag team and singles wrestler, Statlander has been one of the many wrestlers making noise on Beyond Wrestling’s weekly programming, and she seems destined for stardom at any major promotion.
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All Elite Wrestling would be elated to have Statlander officially on their roster. They could use more top talent in their women’s division, so WWE’s loss would be AEW’s gain. WWE, if Meltzer’s reporting is correct, should have been quicker to the punch when it came to offering a contract, but they do have enough talent in NXT that they’ll be OK.
A deal hasn’t been reached yet, but hopefully AEW and Statlander can agree to a good contract. Consider this a potential win for TNT’s weekly wrestling show.