AEW star admits that WWE didn’t show any interest in signing him

During an appearance on Chris Jericho’s podcast, AEW star Bryan Keith commented on if there was any interest from WWE in signing him…

“No, nothing. I’ve been at Booker [T]’s for a long time. I did extra work and things like that, but nothing like, ‘Hey, come in and we’ll take a look at you and things like that.’ I watched WWE all the time as a kid. I’m a WWF kid, I never even watched WCW growing up. But I feel like whenever I got older, I gravitated towards the Japanese style of professional wrestling, so in my head, I literally wanted to go to Japan.

WWE or TNA and all these other places, it wasn’t the goal. I’d work for them. At the time, if they were giving it, I was gonna see what’s up. But in my head, I was like, ‘Japan, Japan, Japan.’ I remember my parents being like, ‘How? How the hell do you think you’re gonna get on the other side of the world and do that?’ Actually, at the beginning of this year, I went for the first time for two weeks. DDT brought me out, and I wrestled out there.” (quote courtesy of Fightful.com)

Keith officially became “All Elite” in February of 2024.