Darby Allin On Why He Turned Down WWE Offer To Workout For Them At Performance Center, Says He Didn’t Want To Be Just Another 205 Live Person

On the latest edition of AEW Unrestricted, Darby Allin discussed why he turned down an offer from WWE to come workout at the Performance Center, saying that he didn’t want to end up as just another guy on 205 Live, noting that there are so many people in WWE that you forget that half of them even exist. Highlights are below.

On being asked by WWE to come workout at the Performance Center: “Back then, they asked me if I was interested in coming down and at the time, I was like, not trying to sound I’m too good for it, but I was already like, ‘Yo, you either want me or you don’t, I’m not going to tryout for this, because you already know what I can do based on the company I was wrestling for [EVOLVE], they worked so close with the WWE, and I was already wrestling all their wrestlers, like Chris Hero, or Velveteen Dream, or all these people, so I’m like, you already know what I can do, I’m not just going to sit here.

On how he didn’t want to end up as just another 205 Live person: “The people I see get tryouts are such a joke that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. I’m not going to sit here and be this clown, but then I thought about it, and I was like, fuck, I don’t even want to go there anymore. That’s when I started talking to Cody more and more, and I told him, like, look, I see the writing on the wall, I ain’t going to play this game where I go there and be a cruiserweight, 205 Live person, I ain’t playing that game, because then my body of work, my art, my promos, will never see the light of day, and that’s where I was like, I’m not playing these games with these people. Like there are thousands of people there and you forget they even exist half the time, and I’m not going to be locked in the Performance Center, so I was like I’m not doing this.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit AEW Unrestricted with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.