Dragon Lee confirmed that he'd signed with WWE after winning the AAA tag titles on December 28.
Some details were revealed by ESPN's Marc Raimondi, detailing that Dragon Lee had signed with WWE earlier this month. Fightful has learned a bit more. As highlighted in the ESPN piece, former WWE Senior Director of Talent Development Canyon Ceman had expressed interest in Dragon Lee, before it was decided he wouldn't be brought in.
We're told that WWE had expressed interest after Dragon Lee had appeared on AEW TV this year, and swooped in and came to an agreement with him when they found out that he didn't have a contract with the company. Those that we spoke to indicated that Dragon Lee had also pushed for his brother Dralistico (who has performed as Dragon Lee and Mistico in the past) to join WWE as well, but WWE passed on him for the time being. Contrary to subsequent aggregations, we'd never reported that Dralistico got a WWE tryout. He's likely to sign with AEW/ROH based on those we've spoken to.
On Thursday afternoon, it was indicated to us that a "big NXT signing" would be coming that day, without further details. We've since learned that the deal Dragon Lee signed was for more of an NXT scale deal as opposed to a Raw/ Smackdown deal.
WWE had cameras at the AAA show on December 28 filming, and will report to the Performance Center over the next few weeks. AAA was aware that the signing was coming at least as of a couple of weeks ago and informed those on a need to know basis that was happening. Those that we spoke to didn't believe AEW was caught off guard by it.
ESPN also highlighted that Finn Balor had reached out to him to help facilitate the deal. We're told more things like this could happen for high profile free agents in the coming years.
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