AEW Star Explains Why He Signed With Company Over WWE

Ever since All Elite Wrestling launched in 2019, there has been a war between the two companies and fights over talent, as each promotion has something to offer wrestlers over one another that could sway someone to decide to sign with one company over another.

Former 5-time KO-D Openweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita signed with AEW last November after several impressive outings while wrestling on AEW programming, mostly Dark and Dark Elevation.

Although Takeshita remains signed to DDT in Japan, he is a fully-fledged AEW roster member in AEW. Since coming to AEW, he has aligned himself with Don Callis.

While speaking with DDT Pro-Wrestling’s official website, Takeshita talked about his decision to sign with AEW over WWE. He noted when he lost to Tetsuya Endo at Ryogoku Kokugikan last March, it started a new chapter for him and he wanted to show what he could do in the United States.

“So the choice was WWE or AEW. At that time, there were not that many main male wrestlers in AEW, and moreover, there were no Japanese who wore the singles belt, except for women. I wanted to do something that no one else was doing. At that point, I wasn’t sure if AEW would become as huge as it is now, but it was still a choice I made. Then, over the next year or so, the number of wrestlers steadily increased, and I don’t think I would have had a chance if I had waited another year. It was all a matter of timing…”

Takeshita will wrestle Chris Jericho at Ultimate Party 2023 on November 12.