Tony Khan on How Darby Allin Brought His Attention to Nick Wayne

– The MegaCast podcast recently interviewed AEW President Tony Khan, who discussed AEW offering a type of apprenticeship contract to 16-year-old wrestler Nick Wayne at DEFY Wrestling’s Year V event last month. According to Khan, Darby Allin was the one who scouted Nick Wayne and encouraged Khan to offer Wayne a contract. He stated the following (via Fightful):

“Darby and I are very close, we’re like twin sides of the same coin [laughs]. There is probably nobody I have less in common with, that I have a better connection with than Darby. He is absolutely the person that brought Nick to my attention. He’s trained with Nick since he was a young kid. I told, ‘When he’s 18, I would love to have him.’ I really took Darby’s word for it. That’s my guy, Nick Wayne, when he’s 18 years old, I can’t wait for him to step in the ring for us. I give Darby all the credit for spotting him. They trained together for a long time and Darby is a fixture. In Seattle, we have probably the two most popular wrestlers out of the Washington area specifically in Darby Allin and Bryan Danielson. They both are very adept at scouting wrestlers.”

Under AEW’s contract offer to Wayne, he will have to finish high school, and then he will be able to become fully contracted to AEW after he turns 18.