Lexis King reflects on the end of his time in AEW.
Brian Pillman Jr. left AEW in July 2023, as his contract expired. He signed with WWE and debuted as Lexis King on the October 24th, 2023, episode of NXT. He has become a featured member of the NXT roster, and he holds the NXT Heritage Cup.
Speaking on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, Lexis King was asked to comment on when he realized that he wanted to leave AEW and move on.
“I think things started to look a little grim when they sort of removed Julia [Hart] from [the Varsity Blonds]. I thought she was a very imperative part of it, but at the same time, I was confident in mine and Griff’s abilities, so I thought, why don’t we change course a little bit and get away from the generic babyface and transition into a little bit more of a rock ‘n’ roll, sort of fuckboy kind of group, where we’re sexy guys, so then we were going to do The Blonds or whatever. There was a tag team that we wrestled, and they trademarked the name ‘Varsity’ and stole it from us, so we were no longer the Varsity Blonds, we were just The Blonds. Then it just kind of seemed like they were running out of ideas for us, and then it started to…the writing was on the wall. I think also Griff got hurt at that time, and so I was going a lot more singles on Dark and sort of starting to find myself again. The beauty of AEW too was that when you weren’t being used, you had access to go do the indies and to experiment and try new things. So I took very full advantage of that, and I tried to stay booked. Even if I wasn’t booked on TV, I had something going on on the weekends and stuff, so I was always traveling, staying busy, and that’s where I started to find myself, and again, it might have been a little too little, too late. AEW is very much a sink-or-swim environment, so by the time I found myself, it might have been a little too late. My contract had come up. It wasn’t like I was released prior to it being done with. But it was a little out of the blue, just because I was doing a lot of the, we had started doing house show loops, and I had been performing well. I was in the road with the team, and the time, a lot of the bigger stars weren’t willing to do those shows, so I thought that I was showing a lot of willingness to work and to be for the company, and I did put the company first. I was very much a huge fan of AEW while I was there, and I still am a huge fan, and I wish them all the best. We have to remember, if it wasn’t for AEW giving myself that stage, giving Ricky [Saints] and Ethan [Page] that stage, we might be where we are now. So it was a great amount of exposure. I got to work with Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley and all these great guys. Just by feeling them and just by touching them, you get better. Being in a tag team, me and Griff, we got to wrestle the Young Bucks, and we got to wrestle FTR. So we got to have a nice taste of the whole spectrum of wrestling. AEW is kind of like a melting pot of wrestling. They have so many styles and so many little things you can pick up on. So it’s definitely a different type of learning experience, as opposed to here at WWE, which is more of a structured learning experience, which is more beneficial for me. I’ve always benefited more from structure, but no, it was a very imperative part of my career that definitely helped me grow," King said.
During the interview, King also noted that he had many mentors and people who helped him, and he stated that he was a product of his environment at WWE. He said that the company had molded him into a much better performer.
"I am a product of my environment, I am a product of all these amazing producers and agents and the writers here at WWE. They’ve really reined me in and really molded me into a much better performer. Going back to even when I was in the indies, just so many guys, sharing locker rooms with Ricky Morton, I mentioned Rip Rogers earlier, so there has been so much that has gone into getting me to where I am today that I couldn’t have done it alone," King said.
Click here to see what Lexis King had to say about signing with WWE.
King previously discussed the working relationship between WWE and TNA. Check out his comments here.
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