"We haven't talked since" - Former WWE star spills the beans on his failed talks with Tony Khan and AEW (Exclusive)

AEW has not been shy about signing former WWE Superstars and wrestlers who have built their careers in competing promotions. A former WWE star has now opened up about his failed talks with Tony Khan. The former TNA World Heavyweight Champion has revealed the interesting gimmick plans that Khan had for him.

EC3 joined TNA in 2013 after stints on the indies and WWE developmental, including NXT, where he made his name as Ethan Carter III, the storyline nephew of Dixie Carter. He returned to the Stamford-based company in 2018 but was released in April 2020 due to the COVID-19-related budget cuts. The 41-year-old then launched his Control Your Narrative brand before making his ROH debut later that year.

After wrestling in around 15 ROH matches, EC3 was pulled from plans due to a COVID-19 diagnosis. The former Derrick Bateman finally signed a contract but was released due to ROH shutting down its doors, just over one year before Khan's purchase. The Best Guy Anywhere recently spoke with Vince Russo and Chris Featherstone on Sportskeeda Wrestling's The Wrestling Outlaws and revealed that he did have conversations with the AEW CEO on the phone.

EC3 described Tony as a cordial gentleman and fun to talk to. Their talks were during the pandemic when the Ohio native was performing in ROH, but that's a story he's saving for his book. Russo asked the former TNA World Champion why things didn't go further with Khan.

"Well, our conversations were about doing a spot and seeing where it leads, and he was very much trying to do my top 1% gimmick... get the music from TNA, but first I thought I was under contract with Ring of Honor, so it probably couldn't have happened unless we worked out a deal, but with wanting to bring back the 1% gimmick with the music and things like that, and my big issue with that was like, 'Dude... my life got turned upside down; the world's burning around me; I just got canned by WWE with 30 other people because we're just pieces of the machine,'" EC3 said. [From 1:13 to 1:52]

EC3 continued:

"It would be hard to show up and just be like, 'Hey, I'm still the rich, cool guy with the big swinging-D,' I felt character-wise. Something had to... that's why, with the CYN [Control Your Narrative] thing, my character had to evolve and change into something to where if I just did that, cool, and get a big pop. It's basically like... all these things have happened, how can I creatively, just be this cool again, like, 'Here's my Maserati, my aunt's got money! Duh-duh-duh!' It wouldn't work... it didn't work, and us kind of, like, pitching alternative things that were really awesome, and then we haven't talked since.'' [From 1:52 to 2:21]

EC3 never debuted in AEW and hasn't worked for ROH since Khan purchased the company. His last ROH match came at Final Battle 2021 when his Team Foundation lost an eight-man match against Rocky Romero and VLNCE UNLTD.

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AEW Dynamite lineup for tonight

Tonight, AEW will present the go-home episode of Dynamite ahead of the sixth annual Revolution PPV. Below is the updated lineup:

• Ricochet vs. Swerve Strickland contract signing for Revolution
• Cope vs. Wheeler Yuta
• Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford vs. Thunder Rosa and Kris Statlander
• Mistico will appear for the ROH TV tapings

Saturday's AEW Collision episode will also be taped tonight. The Dynamite, Collision, and ROH rosters will present tonight's tapings from the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in the California capital.