wrestling / News

Prince Nana Reveals How He Came To Sign With AEW

October 5, 2023 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Prince Nana Swerve Strickland AEW Image Credit: AEW

Prince Nana is a regular on AEW TV as part of the Mogul Embassy, and he recently discussed how he ended up signing with the company. Nana spoke about coming into AEW on the latest episode of Talk is Jericho, and some highlights are below (per Fightful):

On his first contact with AEW: “AEW was a company that was kind of birthed through ROH at that particular point in time. That first All In show, I wasn’t a part of it, I wanted to be a part of it, but history was made. The years went by, and I was beginning to kind of lose my luster because I had parted from Ring of Honor, it was still owned by Sinclair, and I had to make a decision on whether I was going to continue trying to perform or get a job doing something else. Luckily, I touched base with a couple of good friends, Homicide, Cary Silkin, CD [Christopher Daniels], and Nick Buck [Nick Jackson] and these guys encouraged me. ‘There may not be an opportunity right now, but keep doing your thing, go out there and try to get some local and national bookings. Get your Embassy thing going.’ I took their advice, I did it, I did one dark match in New York with two local guys, it went well.”

On being brought into the company: “Six months later, six months I was like, ‘I’m done. There is no going back to AEW. That was my little trinket,’ and then I’m in my basement, I’m there with one of my trusted advisors, sipping on some tea, shooting the shit, and out of the blue I get a text message. ‘How soon can you make it out to Boston?’ I jumped out of my seat. Everyone in the business knows that I don’t drive. I can drive, but I usually like to get driven. I looked at the schedule, it would have gotten me there at 8 PM. ‘We can’t do that, we need to get you here immediately.’ ‘I can jump in an Uber and be there in two or three hours.’ I’m in New York City, in Brooklyn. Did the pricing for the Uber, it came out to $650. ‘Let’s do it.’ One Uber car came by, he saw where I was going, and said, ‘Sorry, I can’t do it.’ The next one came, ‘Sorry, I can’t do it.’ Third guy came, I begged him, I got on my knees for the first time in my life, got down on my knees and begged the driver, ‘Can you please take me to Boston. I’ll do whatever you want. I have a big tip for you. This is very important.’ He saw it in my eyes, ‘Get in the car,’ and that’s when history was made. I made it to Boston, met Tony Khan, he hired me on the spot, and history was made,” recalled Nana.

article topics :

AEW, Prince Nana, Jeremy Thomas