39-year-old star reveals he spoke with WWE before returning to AEW - "I just got rubbed the wrong way"

An AEW star who briefly departed the company confirms that he spoke to WWE before returning to his previous employer. This star is close friends with Cody Rhodes.

QT Marshall has been one of the top guys backstage at AEW for a considerable amount of time. He started his run in Tony Khan's promotion as a wrestler who was a regular feature on TV.

Despite being a big part of AEW, he left the company briefly in 2023 before returning to the promotion at the beginning of 2024. During his departure, there were rumors that he could be headed to WWE due to his close friendship with Cody Rhodes.

Speaking on The Takedown on SI, QT Marshall revealed that he had a conversation with WWE before his return to Tony Khan's promotion but this conversation rubbed him the wrong way. He also said that prior to this conversation, he had already spoken to Tony so his mind was pretty much made up:

"I had one conversation with somebody that doesn't even work there anymore. I just got rubbed the wrong way during the conversation. It was like, ‘Hey, yeah, oh yeah, that's great. All right. I told him, like, yeah, all right, we'll stay in touch’. To me, it was like I'm not staying in touch. I had all that time between November and January, so that on January 1 when that conversation did arise or January 2, whenever it was. It was like I kind of knew plus I had already spoken to Tony before that, so I kind of knew. I think I was just looking for a reason to say no," Marshall said. [H/T Fightful]

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QT Marshall told Tony Khan that he would never leave AEW to work in the office at WWE

QT Marshall has proven himself to be a huge asset to AEW backstage due to his various roles in the company. Currently, he is the Vice President of Creative Coordination. Hence, it's safe to say he is Tony Khan's right-hand man.

During the same interview, QT Marshall told Tony before leaving the company briefly that he would never leave AEW to work in the office at WWE. QT questioned why he would feel the need to work longer hours and spend more days on the road just so that he could say he worked for WWE. He also mentioned that he would've felt differently 20 years ago. However, he would've considered it if they offered him the chance to be a talent on the main roster:

"I remember telling Tony a long time ago when Cody first went to WWE, ‘I'm never going to leave AEW to go work in the office at WWE. I just won't do it. That's such a large system’. I'm like Tony's right-hand man. So why would I leave to go be number 7,000 in a company, work more hours, more days on the road, just to say I work for WWE? Like 20 years ago, of course, I would have done anything to work for WWE. Now, it's different. If it was just talent related, and I told Tony this as well, ‘If they came to me and we spoke about just being a talent on the main roster, of course. I mean, that's the dream,'" Marshall said. [H/T Fightful]

It will be interesting to see if QT Marshall will continue to work in this backstage role for AEW.