During his conversation with Aubrey Edwards on the AEW Unrestricted podcast this week, Cody went into unexpected detail on AEW’s contract system. The conversation started when Cody couldn’t recall if recent Dynamite star Red Velvet was under a real contract. Aubrey stated that she wasn’t “All Elite,” meaning that she didn’t get the now famous social media graphic and assumedly a contract to go with it.
Instead, she’s on an “Agreed to appear” deal, as it seems that everyone from the one match wonders on AEW Dark to the Dynamite regulars have some sort of paperwork in place. Later on, Cody gives more details about the system.
“Agreed to appear’ is tier zero, meaning you will get a bonus, and Tony is super generous. If you ask some of these extras what they’re making down there…my dad would’ve lost it.”
“Tier zero is a signing bonus and exclusivity to us in terms of, we get a first option on you and we guarantee you X amount of dates. The exclusivity is case by case. The goal is, you don’t want to pay someone who has agreed to appear and keep giving them their weekly versus tier one, which is our base contract agreement. We have tier one, two, three, four, and tier Jericho.”
The last quote is the most interesting, as it seems like Jericho is in a class all his own in terms of compensation. Considering the notoriety he gave to the league as its first champion and the fact that he can likely never return to WWE at this point, it makes sense. Still, it does seem like AEW has the first pick when it comes to any talent coming through AEW Dark.
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