Miro Claims He'll Retire If He Fails to Win the AEW World Championship

Even though he's been on AEW programming since September, Miro (formerly Rusev in WWE) hasn't been anywhere near a championship match. "The Best Man" has been focussed primarily on Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford's wedding, while also feuding with The Best Friends and Orange Cassidy. But the Bulgarian star seems incredibly confident that he'll eventually capture the company's top prize and become AEW World Champion. He openly declared on a recent Twitch stream that if he doesn't win the title, he'll retire.

"When the time is right. I've said that before. And I can guarantee you that if I don't become AEW Champion, I'm going to probably retire. Actually not probably, I will retire," he said (h/t 411Mania). "Do you know what that means? That means I'm going to become AEW Champion."

In a media conference call back in early December, AEW president Tony Khan discussed the big plans his promotion has for Miro. But he acknowledged that they needed to rehabilitate his character after how WWE had used him over the last few years.

"Whether people know it or not, we're re-contextualizing Miro," Khan said. "I don't know what Miro was supposed to be before he came to AEW. I don't understand what he represented. And I think most of the great characters in wrestling have some element of their personality, where they bring themselves into it. And the Miro you're seeing is the person I know."

I'm just kind of rebuilding him, to be honest with you. I thought he got beat up so badly [in WWE]," he later added. "I saw some jackass on Twitter was like, 'This guy drove a tank at WrestleMania and now he's doing this,' and I'm like, 'Yeah, and then he got kicked in the nuts and they treated him like s— for years. He drove a tank out five years ago. That's not the guy I signed. The guy I signed had been abused for years. And he's being rebuilt."

Since arrive in AEW, Miro has a perfect 4-0 record in singles competition. Sabian and Ford's wedding will take place during next week's special edition of AEW Dynamite, Beach Break.