The future of AEW is perhaps stronger than any other company in the world today. While seasoned veterans like Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley & Kenny Omega were the names to really get eyes on AEW, there has been a heavy investment into their future with some of the best young talent in the world. Names like MJF, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin, and Jungle Boy are already reaching their potentials, with all of them still in their 20’s. However, WWE could have had Jungle Boy, but had a minor gripe which kept him away.
Jungle Boy Was Too Small For WWE
As he revealed on an episode of Being The Elite, Jungle Boy was in talks with WWE. He was passed up due to being too little. WWE wanted Jungle Boy to put on another 30lbs, and then they’d give him a job. This is an unreasonable request, and would have impacted the style of match that Jungle Boy was getting praise for.
It was Matt & Nick Jackson who brought Jungle Boy into AEW, due to the amount of praise he was getting for his matches. There was some concern from fans of AEW at the time that he was just being brought in due to being popular seemingly only through gifs. Since then, Jungle Boy has been one of the biggest workhorses in AEW, and had an incredible AEW World Championship match with Kenny Omega recently.
Would He Have Found Success In WWE?
We can assume Jungle Boy was in talks with WWE back around 2019. If he was signed, he would have been placed onto the NXT brand for about two or three years, likely still being part of the roster now. His size and style would have lended him well to the NXT style, and he might have even found a role in the original NXT Breakout Tournament in 2019. He’d have been a Takeover level star in NXT, likely getting a chance to be NXT Cruiserweight or NXT North American Champion before too long.
However, as recently reported changes to NXT show, WWE have changed their mind fully on smaller talents. They recently passed up on Daniel Garcia & Wheeler Yuta, and if given the chance to sign Jungle Boy in 2021, they would likely pass on him again for the same reason. Choices like this could very well come back to bite WWE down the line, but we will have to wait and see how their new hiring processes fare for them.
Would Jungle Boy have worked in WWE? Let us know what you think in the comment section down below.
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