Ricochet Would’ve Never Joined WWE If AEW Was Born One Year Earlier

Ricochet is #AllElite. The innovative high-flyer officially joined All Elite Wrestling this past August at AEW ALL IN: London, debuting as a surprise entrant in the Wembley Stadium show’s Casino Gauntlet Match. Ricochet had been linked to AEW for multiple months leading up to his debut, with theories first bubbling about him jumping ship after Will Ospreay called out his former rival to “bet on himself” when his WWE contract expired. Less than one week after those comments were made, Ricochet gave his notice to WWE, slowly detaching himself from his employer of the past six years in order to enter free agency upon his deal coming to an end.

Ricochet Would’ve Never Join WWE If AEW Existed Earlier

If Tony Khan got moving on AEW one year earlier, Ricochet would have been part of the company’s launch roster.

“At the time, if AEW was even a thought or a plan or anything, I for sure would’ve went this direction for sure,” Ricochet told Talk is Jericho when asked about his January 2018 signing with WWE.

Ricochet made his televised debut at NXT Takeover: New Orleans in April 2018. This kicked off a year-long stint for Ricochet in the black and gold developmental brand before he was slowly brought to the main roster in early 2019.

“At the time, the black and gold stuff was going crazy,” Ricochet reflected on the appeal of NXT specifically during his last free agency period in late 2017. “They just did Cesaro and Sami Zayn, Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke. The Finn Balors and the Kevin Owens. All of those guys were just killing it. Not only that, but you had Undisputed Era when I was there and Aleister Black was there.”

Ricochet shared a mindset with top stars in his NXT class like Adam Cole, Tommaso Ciampa, and Johnny Gargano in that he saw NXT as his destination, not a stepping stone. Nevertheless, he was WWE Monday Night Raw within one year of his NXT debut, leaving him with one of the shorter NXT stints compared to the majority of his peers.

“That was kind of the only place I really wanted to be,” Ricochet continued. “I didn’t want to go to Raw or SmackDown. I wanted to be in NXT. I was only there for like nine months and then we got called up to Raw.”

Ricochet is set to challenge Will Ospreay for the AEW International Title on the AEW Dynamite five-year anniversary on Wednesday, October 2nd.