More on Jay White’s Contract with AEW & Potential Reason for Not Signing with WWE

As noted before, former New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Jay White made his surprise return at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Long Island, New York. Following his appearance on the show, AEW confirmed that he had signed an official contract with them. Prior to his signing, WWE officials had believed he would not be joining their company as of this past WrestleMania 39 weekend.

Fightful Select reported that their sources provided more details regarding White’s decision to sign with AEW over WWE.

It was reported that White’s contract with AEW is for multiple years in length.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that White’s deal with AEW was in place well ahead of WWE’s WrestleMania 39 event this past weekend and WWE officials were aware that he would not be potentially joining the company by then.

It was reported that WWE officials had felt confident at one point that they would be able to sign White following his impending free agency from NJPW with Paul “Triple H” Levesque and William Regal both showing interest towards him. High level WWE officials spoken to reportedly stated that they felt that the company had “failed to communicate properly along the process” leaving the door open for AEW to sign him instead. Those spoken to stated that this issue could have been the product of Vince McMahon’s recent return and the lack of main roster hiring since then.

WWE officials reportedly had tentative creative plans at one point for White’s potential debut in the company. It was also reported that while higher level WWE officials knew the time was ticking on getting a potential deal done, several within the company were still hopefully as of last week of still being able to sign him to a deal, which did not happen in the end.