Tony Nese On How He Got Signed To AEW, Being In Audience For Lance Archer’s Injury

Tony Nese was the guest on a recent episode of the AEW UNRESTRICTED podcast. Nese told the story of getting signed to AEW, including the surprising speed with which it happened, as well as being in the crowd when Lance Archer suffered a bad injury in the ring. Read some excerpts below:

On just being at the show to see friends and colleagues: “It was a crazy day. I was honestly just showing up to meet Tony, to talk to him. I was standing outside of his office, just talking to a bunch of people, Adam Cole and a couple others. And [Tony] walks out. “Hey Tony, how you doing? I’m a big fan!” blah blah blah. Shook my hand. Literally like five minutes later, he’s like “do you want to sit out in the crowd today?” I actually took a step back, wait, you want me to like be a fan? What’s going on here? You want me to fill seats or something for you?” “No no, we’re going to make a big deal out of it, like what’s Tony Nese doing here?”

On talking over a deal within the half-hour after meeting Tony Khan: “Okay, great. I just thought I was here to hang out and talk to everyone. Literally within a minute after that, they also pulled me aside, they talked to me. We kind of talked out a deal and everything. It was like a matter of that.”

On being in the audience when Lance Archer got hurt from a botched moonsault: “Luckily nothing bad came out of this, but I don’t know if you remember Lance Archer having an accident. And for some reasons the truck’s first intention was “let’s shoot to Tony Nese.” And I seen the red light in the camera… oh no. I have so many options here. I can look at the camera and make a face… but also in my head, I don’t know the severity of the situation yet. So the last thing I want to do is make something about me and we find out later on someone’s really badly injured. I had no idea what to do. I’m just staring off into the distance, thinking “please make that red light go away.”

On still being on his 90-day no compete from his WWE release: “I was still on my 90-day. [Previously] I had come to a Jacksonville taping. I had no absolute chance to work. Still brought my gear. Always bring your gear. No matter what. You never know. Anything can happen in wrestling.”

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