Details on Andrade El Idolo's Decision to Sign With AEW

Andrade El Idolo, formerly known as Andrade from his time in WWE and NXT, made his surprise arrival on AEW Dynamite on Friday night's episode. It was quickly confirmed afterwards that the former NXT Champion had signed with the company, and he revealed in his opening promo that Vickie Guerrero will be serving as his manager. On Saturday Wrestling Inc.'s Raj Giri released a new report shedding light on how the potential main eventer was brought into the fold.

The report states that because Andrade didn't have a 90-day "No Compete" clause in his contract after he was granted his WWE release in March AEW president Tony Khan was already in negotiations with him the week of his release. Those negotiations stalled over Andrade's reported demands (creative control, veto power over being booked to lose), but it was eventually agreed that he would have limited creative control and be free to work with other promotions outside of AEW, as was proven when he recently arrived in Lucha Libre AAA down in Mexico.

Impact Wrestling was reportedly close to getting Andrade to agree on a one-time appearance and were even in talks to sign him, but they couldn't agree on the number of dates he'd work nor the downside guarantee on his contract. Ring of Honor was also reportedly in the running.

Andrade explained in an interview with Lucha Libre Online why he chose to leave the company, stating, When the pandemic started, they put me with Drew McIntyre. Drew was great with me and behaved well with me in NXT and on the main roster. We had the matches and a producer came to me and said, 'Make sure Drew looks like a monster, because he's the champ.' Drew came to me and told me to wrestle how I know to wrestle, saying that he doesn't need me to make him look good, but to wrestle how I wrestle best. A lot of people treated me well, Drew too and Randy Orton. [Randy] would ask me, 'Why aren't they using you?' I didn't know what to say and didn't know what was going on. After that, I made the decision [to leave]."

Meanwhile, Omega is currently the world champion of three separate promotions including AAA. He'll defend the AEW World Championship against both PAC and Orange Cassidy at Double or Nothing on May 30, then take on Moose at Impact's Against All Odds pay-per-view on June 12 with the Impact World Championship on the line.