More Details On Stephanie Vaquer’s Decision To Join WWE Over AEW

As previously reported, Stephanie Vaquer has signed with WWE and will be headed to NXT after abruptly leaving CMLL and NJPW. There were reports that AEW was also interested, but she ultimately went with WWE. F4WOnline‘s Dave Meltzer has more details on Vaquer’s decision and what led up to it.

According to the report, in spite of appearing at Forbidden Door, Vaquer didn’t give any strong consideration to AEW. She grew up watching WWE in Chile so that was always her goal. She previously had a tryout in 2018 but WWE decided not to sign her at that time.

AEW offered her a deal, which would have allowed her to work Fridays and other dates for CMLL and other international dates. CMLL and NJPW were aware of her talks with WWE. They asked her to work at least Fantasticamania in San Jose if she planned to sign with WWE, as she was advertised and NJPW hates to do false advertisements. CMLL also wanted her to drop her titles before leaving, which ultimately did not happen. She was stripped of the women’s world title and women’s world tag team titles.

Vaquer decided against signing with AEW and went with WWE instead. It’s believed she directly told CMLL and either told NJPW (or CMLL told NJPW for her) that she signed a contract on Monday. This meant she would be unable to appear on the PPV or any dates in Mexico, including a RevPro show in London on August 24 and other dates announced and advertised. This also included future dates that were booked but not advertised.

Her last match for CMLL was on July 9 in Guadalajara against Tessa Blanchard, which she won. The feeling was that if she didn’t sign and wanted to go to WWE, she should have lost on the way out and dropped her titles. NJPW was reportedly upset that her appearance was advertised for three months and then she backed out five days before the show.

While WWE signings have interfered with other companies in the past, this is the first time it’s impacted CMLL in this way. CMLL typically doesn’t stop talent from taking offers from bigger companies as long as they do farewell matches and lose on the way out.

It’s believed that WWE will debut Vaquer at their Mexico City event on July 13 at Arena Ciudad.