Adam Cole could have pulled a Lex Luger and showed up on AEW television in the middle of being booked in a WWE program.
However, there was no chance that was going to happen according to Cole.
Cole's deal with WWE expired in July, but he decided to sign a short extension with the company as he figured out what his next move was.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Cole discussed his decision to sign a short-term extension before making the move to AEW.
"I did make it very clear to them that I wanted to weigh my options and think about what I was going to do," Cole said when asked about informing WWE of signing with AEW. "They could not have been more professional. They could not have been cooler about it. They never pressured me. They were awesome the whole way through. I think what really helped is, during everything going on, there was a short extension that I ended up signing. To me, it was such a no-brainer. They didn't have to convince me, they didn't have to talk me into it. I was in the middle of a program with one of my best friends Kyle O'Reilly. It was really important to me that I got to finish that. Not just that, but because of how good they were to me that entire time. That was really helpful was far as the respect on both sides. Hypothetically, I could have ended up walking out and debuting on Dynamite a few days later, but there was no chance, no chance I would have ever done that. I made it very clear to them that I was going to think about what I was going to do. It was tough because I really had no idea. I couldn't communicate properly with AEW until my contract was up. At that point, I felt like it would have been foolish of me, from my own personal standpoint, to not at least wait and see what the options were. They understood that."
Cole finished up his WWE NXT run with a loss to O'Reilly at NXT TakeOver 36 in a two-out-of-three falls match.
He officially made his AEW debut at AEW All Out by joining his friends The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega in The Elite.
You can learn more about Cole joining AEW by clicking here.
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