Anthony Bowens had plenty of options.
We profiled Anthony Bowens a year and a half ago, and in the process found out that WWE had interest in him prior to that. Fast forward to Fall of 2020, and Bowens was appearing on AEW Dark before signing with All Elite Wrestling.
As Fightful Select reports, he's not the only one, and there's more to the story.
Based on Lee Johnson being added to the Nightmare Family, it would appear that he's signed to All Elite Wrestling. We were actually set for an interview several weeks ago, but the day of I was told that we'd need to go through AEW PR. That's usually a sign that someone has been signed. Johnson hasn't been featured heavily on AEW Dynamite, but since then we've learned that he wasn't the only signing from AEW Dark. We were told "multiple" AEW Dark regulars are under agreements of some sort, but weren't specified if they were short-term, long term, or a set number of appearances. Max Caster and Anthony Bowens ended up being a couple of those.
All Elite Wrestling has officially announced the signing of Anthony Bowens and Max Caster via a Tony Khan interview with PWInsider.
Fightful did a feature on Bowens in Spring of 2019, and had learned that WWE had expressed interest in Bowens prior to that....and then just didn't get back to Bowens. Coaches and staff that Fightful contacted for the story on the condition of anonymity were puzzled by the situation, and said that he should be there, and under contract.
In regards to Bowens' signing with AEW, we're told it was made official before November, and WWE had been reaching out to numerous AEW Dark and NJPW Strong talent. As we've seen, Ben Carter landed with NXT UK.
Fightful has been told the story behind Bowens and Caster ending up as a team and signed by AEW is a wild one.
This article first appeared on our premium service, Fightful Select. Subscribe to get exclusive news every day, and a half-dozen weekly podcasts. It also appeared in our Fightful Wrestling Weekly newsletter, free on Fightful.
