AEW continues to soar with its roster of ‘misfits’
A few days after his WWE contract expired, Adam Cole was lying in bed at 1 a.m., trying to figure out what to do next.
The 32-year-old wrestler had two options: stay with World Wrestling Entertainment, where he’d spent the past four years as the longest-reigning NXT champion, or jump to All Elite Wrestling, an upstart promotion started by Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan’s son, Tony, barely two years earlier.
“My goal when I was 9 years old was to be in WWE. I was there. I spent four years in NXT. But regardless, even while I was in WWE, I was still paying attention to everything AEW was doing; I loved what they were doing,” Cole, whose real name is Austin Jenkins, told the Daily News.
“When I was thinking about going to AEW, I felt like a 9-year-old. I was giddy at the idea of debuting there. To me, that was my heart and my intuition’s way of telling me that was the decision I had to make.”
A week later, on Sept. 5, Cole debuted for AEW in Chicago alongside Bryan Danielson at “All Out,” a pay-per-view event that fans have spent the last two weeks calling the greatest card in wrestling history.
The same night, Ruby Soho made a surprise debut during the women’s Casino Battle Royale. Two weeks earlier, CM Punk jumped to AEW. Everywhere AEW fans turned, they had a new star to cheer for.
“AEW pretty much stands for everything that I love about pro wrestling, which is being different. There’s something out there for everybody,” Soho, 30, told The News.
“AEW is putting out something different that people haven’t seen before.”
That’s a common refrain, both from AEW wrestlers and its fans, that the company isn’t trying to replicate WWE or even any of the attempted successors. Khan has lured stars away from WWE and found up-and-comers on the independent circuit. Now, the favorites, like Cole and Soho, are coming to him.
“I don’t claim to be anything that I’m not. I’m a small-town kid from Indiana who’s always felt a little bit like an outcast, like a misfit, even within the confines of pro wrestling. I’ve always been searching for my place and I feel like I’ve found it with AEW. I’ve found my people,” said Soho, who was released from WWE in June.
“I have constantly been in search of a place that would allow me to be me.”
Soho, who wrestled for WWE under the moniker Ruby Riott, even got to change her name, thanks to Rancid guitarist Lars Frederikson, who gave her the rights to use their song title, “Ruby Soho,” as her name, and the tune as her entrance music.
“I never have been so jazzed entering a pro wrestling ring than when I hear ‘Ruby Soho,’ ” she laughed. “It’s the embodiment of my kid rock self.”