Tony Khan Wanted To Sign Bandido To AEW In 2019

Bandido made his long awaited return at last night’s ROH Final Battle 2024 PPV, which comes after several weeks of teasers on recent AEW programming. He returned following the ROH World Championship match between Chris Jericho and Matt Cardona, making the save for Cardona as Jericho’s Learning Tree faction were dealing a beatdown post-match.

This marked Bandido’s first appearance for a year and a half after breaking his wrist in June 2023 in a match with Konosuke Takeshita. Bandido made his first appearance in AEW in late 2022 in a losing effort to Chris Jericho, before signing with the company. Had Tony Khan had his way, Bandido would’ve been signed much earlier. 

Speaking at the ROH Final Battle 2024 post-show media scrum, Khan revealed that he actually wanted to bring in Bandido upon AEW’s launch back in 2019. 

"It was really great to see him back. When I first acquired ROH, Bandido had been the reigning champion and we had the match to crown the undisputed ROH Champion, he was the lineal champion at the time. It was great to get Bandido, who actually missed Final Battle 2021 due to COVID and we crowned an interim champion and then the undisputed champion at my first ever event, Supercard. That was my first time working with Bandido. I really wanted to sign Bandido when we first launched AEW. He made a choice and signed with ROH. He became a great World Champion for them and when things changed and I acquired the company, Bandido became a great asset to AEW and ROH. It was exciting to have him return tonight in New York.”

ROH Final Battle also saw the surprise return of Danhausen, in addition to an unexpected appearance from Nigel McGuinness, who competed against Lee Moriarty for the ROH Pure Title.

H/T Fightful

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