"I heard from them the next day" - Anthony Bowens spills the tea on how WWE tried to sign him after his AEW debut

Anthony Bowens recently spoke about how WWE wanted to sign him after his AEW debut, despite not following up on the interest they had in the young performer years earlier.

Bowens made his AEW debut on the October 6, 2020, edition of Dark, where he teamed up with Lee Johnson to take on Luther and Serpentico of "Chaos Project." A few weeks after his debut, he was paired with Max Caster. The two would eventually form the popular tag team The Acclaimed, and were officially signed to AEW.

Speaking on the "BBC LGBT Sports Podcast," Bowens spoke openly about how WWE made him an offer, conveniently the day after his debut on Dark.

“So I end up going down to Jacksonville to do a Dark taping, and what happened then got interesting was because a couple of years before that, I had interest from NXT/WWE and then I didn’t hear from them. When my match with AEW aired, I heard from them the next day and they offered me a deal." [6:52-7:12]

Fortunately for Bowens, AEW president Tony Khan stepped in and managed to offer him a better deal.

"Tony Khan caught wind of it and brought me down to Jacksonville, which ended up being the same thing that was happening with Max Caster, and Tony ended up pairing myself with Max Caster and wanted us to be The Acclaimed, we went out and wrestled that night and he offered us contracts when we came through the curtain.” [7:13-7:35]

Since their signing, The Acclaimed have been considered one of the most entertaining duos in all of wrestling, with their in-ring work being highly praised as well.

In recent weeks, The Acclaimed have joined forces with Billy Gunn and his sons, The Gunn Club, also known as the "A** Boys" to fans and members of the AEW locker room.

The group has had a decent amount of success since teaming together, with Caster and the Gunns opening the historic June 1 edition of Dynamite in Los Angeles, California against CM Punk and FTR.

Unfortunately for Anthony Bowens, he sustained an injury that will keep him on the shelf for a prolonged period of time. Anthony Bowens may be in a wheelchair at the time of writing, but he still gets huge responses from the audience.

Are you looking forward to seeing Anthony Bowens back in the ring? Stay tuned to AEW TV to see when he returns to the ring.

Please credit the "BBC LGBT Sports Podcast" and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling when using quotes from this article.