AEW President Tony Khan has high hopes for Nick Wayne and has praised AEW original Darby Allin for scouting the 16-year-old prodigy.
In case you missed it, Nick Wayne was offered an AEW contract by Darby Allin at a recent independent show in Seattle, Washington -- the hometown of both Wayne and Allin. It all went down in the closing moments of DEFY's 5th-anniversary show on Saturday, February 12. AEW's Christopher Daniels had just defeated Nick Wayne (who is 35 years younger than Daniels) in the main event when Darby Allin's music hit. Allin came to the ring and offered Wayne a contract, which Wayne accepted and signed then and there.
TK opened up how about how and why he signed Wayne during a recent chat with the hosts of The Megacast podcast.
“Darby and I are very close. I think we’re like twin sides of the same coin," Khan explained. "There’s probably nobody I have less in common with that I have a better connection with than Darby. He is absolutely the person that brought Nick to my attention. He’s trained with Nick since he was a very young kid and I told him ‘I think when he’s 18, I would love to have him.’ I really took Darby’s word for it. So that’s my guy, Nick Wayne, when he’s 18 years old, I can’t wait for him to step into the ring for us," the AEW boss continued.
TK continued to praise Allin and seemed very proud of the fact that AEW had some of the most exciting Seattleite wrestlers on its books. “I give all the credit to Darby for spotting [Nick Wayne]. Obviously, you know, firsthand, they trained together for a long time," said Khan. "And Darby is a fixture in Seattle. I believe we have the two most popular wrestlers out of Seattle in recent memory, or I should say out of the Washington area, with Darby Allin and Bryan Danielson. I would imagine they’re the two most popular wrestlers in the area, and they’re both very adept at scouting wrestlers.”
Nick Wayne is the son of the late Buddy Wayne, who tragically passed away in 2017 at the age of 50. On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez reported that Wayne's AEW deal is akin to an apprenticeship, and Wayne will have to finish high school before he can join the AEW roster on a full-time basis.
Nick Wayne has a very bright future ahead of him, and we can't wait to witness his journey.
