Andrade El Idolo Responds to Report About His Recent AEW Return & Clarified His Departure from AEW in 2023

As noted before, this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite 6th Anniversary show in Hollywood, Florida featured Andrade El Idolo making his surprise return to AEW and being revealed as the newest member of the Don Callis Family.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that one main reason why AEW officials brought back Andrade was due to them wanting another Hispanic star to help build the company up in Mexico and on Fox Sports Mexico. Meltzer reported that Andrade still has a big name star status in Mexico.

Meltzer also gave his opinions on his issues with AEW bringing back Andrade due to Andrade’s past history in the company and also AEW’s history of bringing in former WWE talent that end up not benefiting the company in the long-term.

“Andrade returned on the 10/1 Dynamite sixth anniversary show and attacked Kenny Omega. I already gave my thoughts on this situation. In the entire history of WWE, I can only come up with one wrestler fired by WWE who has been beneficial long-term to AEW, and that’s Swerve Strickland. Maybe Shelton Benjamin, who has lost on his own but that tag title loss still speaks volumes. But they are an over act and his wrestling has been really strong. The difference was it was very clear Strickland wasn’t wanting to go back and MVP and Bobby Lashley left on their own and Benjamin was part of their group and I don’t think (time will tell) that they are looking to go to WWE. Now people who have left on their own, Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, Ricochet, Adam Cole, Adam Copeland, FTR, Bryan Danielson, yes, tons of success there. Sure, there’s always the exception, but this is the case of someone who already has a history and he was part of the other group.

This isn’t another generation where it would be viewed as a bad look to hire a guy fired after failing a drug test, and obviously a guy who is a star at the level of Jeff Hardy will always get another shot no matter what. Andrade is not close to his level. Like almost everyone who comes from WWE that rarely won there, you get the PTSD of not wanting to lose. Andrade had his problems backstage, and if you’ve noticed, the backstage incidents are far fewer now as compared to a couple of years ago when they were seemingly weekly. Unlike with guys like Penta, Fenix and Ricky Starks, who it became clear weren’t interested in staying and Khan took them off TV, Andrade gave Khan the belief he was staying, Khan believed they had an agreement for a renewal that wasn’t yet signed, he pushed him until the end, even though those in wrestling who knew him said he was going to WWE. Then his contract expired and he left. He is talented in the ring, but geez, everyone is. Even five years ago, he was a very unique talent but now there are so many guys at his level, with better speaking ability and charisma.”

Andrade responded earlier today on Twitter about the portion of Meltzer’s report about his departure from AEW in 2023 and clarified his talks with AEW CEO Tony Khan after his contract had expired.

“@davemeltzerWON You talk too much shit without proof, and Sir, I’ll only tell you one thing: when my contract with AEW ended, I personally went man to man to thank MR. TONY KHAN for the opportunity to be in AEW, and that’s all I’ll tell you. If I wanted to talk more, I would show you that you’re wrong about many things. But you keep killing the business! Yo le deseo lo mejor!!

@davemeltzerWON You talk too much shit without proof, and Sir, I'll only tell you one thing: when my contract with AEW ended, I personally went man to man to thank MR. TONY KHAN for the opportunity to be in AEW, and that's all I'll tell you. If I wanted to talk more, I would show…

— “EL IDOLO” ANDRADE (@AndradeElIdolo) October 5, 2025