Every pro-wrestler dreams of having tryouts with WWE to test themselves against the best. Vince McMahon's successful establishment sets the benchmark for stamina, performance, in-ring abilities, storytelling, and promo cutting, amid a host of other parameters, to judge the true potential of every wrestler.
Tony Khan's promotion features a host of stars who have been former WWE Superstars, like CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Cody Rhodes, Bryan Danielson, Dustin Rhodes, and Jon Moxley, to name a few.
Having said this, there are other stars on the current AEW roster who had tryouts with WWE in the past, albeit couldn't see the light of day for various reasons.
In this article, we look at six such AEW stars.
#6 and #5 The Young Bucks had WWE tryouts in 2008 and 2011
The Young Bucks, a team comprising of brothers Matt and Nick Jackson, are one of the top tag teams on the current AEW roster. Apart from achieving great heights in the ring, the brothers also serve as Executive Vice Presidents for the company.
The former AEW Tag Team Champions appeared on WWE television way back in 2008. The older brother Matt wrestled in two matches, one against Chuck Palumbo in February and the other against The Big Show in a Last Man Standing Match in October, losing both.
In October of the same year, The Young Bucks appeared on The Dirt Sheet in ECW, a talk show hosted by The Miz and John Morrison who were feuding with D-Generation X at the time. The WWE Superstars made Matt and Nick dress up as D-X before beating them in the ring. Despite this appearance, a WWE contract wasn't awarded to the Jackson brothers.
On August 15, 2011, The Young Bucks again had tryouts for WWE producers before RAW tapings in San Diego amid no luck for a second time.
#4 Brian Cage had a WWE tryout in 2008
Brian Cage, a current AEW star, had a WWE tryout in June 2008.
WWE signed Cage to a developmental contract during his tryout, where he reported to their developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling. When Cage first started in FCW, he used the name Brian Cage but eventually changed it to Kris Logan. The name change was to pay homage to the late wrestler Chris Kanyon, with Logan partly due to Brian's resemblance to the Marvel Comics character Wolverine.
On July 23, 2009, Logan and Justin Gabriel defeated The Dude Busters (Caylen Croft and Trent Barreta) to become FCW Florida Tag Team Champions. However, they lost the title that same night against The Rotundos (Bo Rotundo aka Bo Dallas, and Duke Rotundo aka Bray Wyatt).
Later, Cage came up with a new character, Night Claw. This character was seen in a few matches and was supposed to be used till the time WWE legend Hurricane was still active in WWE. However, this didn't happen as the former FTW World Champion was released from his contract in September 2009.
#3 Ricky Starks had a WWE tryout in 2017
Ricky Starks, a member of Team Taz and the current FTW World Champion, had an unsuccessful WWE tryout in 2017. He was approached by WWE offering him a contract after making his AEW debut on June 17, 2020, but Starks decided to stay with Tony Khan's promotion.
In an interview on the Chris Van Vliet Show last year, the young AEW star said this on his 2017 WWE tryout:
"I don't think I was close at all and I'll never understand why. I love wrestling. I've never played any sports, I never did anything, I only watched wrestling. And I have immersed myself and become obsessed with it and I love it to death. So when I did the tryout in 2017 and I was told and saw the reaction when I killed it in the promo class and I was keeping up with everybody when we were doing the workouts and even Matt Bloom was saying how good of a job I did, I realized that they didn't want a wrestler. They wanted someone who wasn't passionate about it that they could probably make into it. And I still don't get why and that was a time period where I kind of went crazy; I dyed my hair and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. So I don't know why that happened and I thought every time that I went to WWE I was like 'This is going to be it. This is how I get in' and it wasn't and that's fine. I'm ok with that."
#2 Eddie Kingston had a WWE tryout in 2016
Eddie Kingston, a current AEW star, had a tryout with WWE in 2016 as a group of 40 pro-wrestlers were invited to the WWE Performance Center. Unfortunately for Kingston, he was not selected for a WWE contract.
In a recent interview with Renee Paquette on her Oral Sessions podcast, Kingston knew he was not going to be selected for WWE in the tryout and had this to say:
"This was at the PC, Jimmy Jacobs hooked me up with it. He was just like, Hey, you want a tryout? I was like, Yes, sure. Let’s go. To me, that tryout was really more for the Mae Young Classic, because there was the biggest class they had for females. So I was like, Alright, I get it. This was for females. I’m just gonna go in and have fun. And that’s the way I looked at it."
Kingston has formed quite the tag team with Jon Moxley in AEW and was seen in action on the latest episode of AEW Dynamite when they, along with Darby Allin, beat the team of Bear Country and Anthony Greene.
#1 MJF had a WWE tryout in 2015
Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF) is one of the biggest stars in AEW today. The leader of The Pinnacle applied to participate in WWE's reality show Tough Enough in 2015 but was not selected. In 2019, shortly before MJF was about to sign with AEW, WWE offered him a contract but this time he refused.
In an interview with Inside The Ropes, MJF explained why he chose AEW over WWE:
"Deep down, I wanted to be part of something new and something fresh and something where I’d be able to control everything going on with me, because I knew if I went to the other place, and this isn’t me [disrespecting] the other place, it’s just a fact, they would try to change me, and there is nothing to change."
MJF was last seen in a showdown with Darby Allin in the latest episode of AEW Dynamite.