Mercedes Mone names exact moment she wanted to join AEW

At AEW Big Business in March 2024, Mercedes Mone made her long awaited debut with All Elite Wrestling after weeks of teases from the company. Mone signed with New Japan Pro Wrestling in January 2023, but she ended up missing the majority of 2023 due to an ankle injury and remained a free agent.
In a new interview with BT and Sal on WFAN, Mercedes Mone was asked about her free agency process. She answered:

“In a sense, I enjoyed it, because I was like, ‘I can’t believe how many companies want me so bad and how many lucrative deals were put on the table.”
“Which one do I choose? Which one do I want? It was also scary at the same time because WWE is WWE. I was like, ‘Do I go back?’ My heart was saying, ‘Don’t go back, go forward.'”
“I kept hearing that in my head. ‘Keep going forward.’ They keep offering me things and they keep asking me to come back. ‘Mercedes, go forward.'”

“New Japan came about. CMLL. AEW. Just having the conversation with Tony (Khan). It took about two years of having conversations. ‘Will this work? Is this what I want? Is this what my heart wants?'”
“Finally, I went to All In at Wembley. Being in the crowd and seeing how 80,000 fans, it wasn’t WrestleMania, it was AEW All In.”
“I was like, ‘This is where I want to be. I want to be here and this company feels aligned with my soul.’ We kept talking and I got the most amazing contract in wrestling history,” 

When asked if she needed to experience the show live to really make her eventual decision, Mone replied:
“I can watch it on TV all day, every week, but I had to be there in person and get a sense of the talent, the audience, and a sense of how they all operated.”
“Out there, I was like, ‘this is so amazing.’ To have 80,000 fans in UK, it let me know wrestling is so special and there doesn’t have to be one place for wrestling.”

Mercedes Mone is set to face Stephanie Vaquer for both the AEW TBS Championship and NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship at tonight’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door. For the full lineup for the show, click here.
For all the latest AEW news, click here.