Former IWGP World Tag Team Champions Aussie Open are reportedly attracting interest from both AEW & WWE.
This February, Aussie Open’s Mark Davis implied that the duo were free agents, and per a new report from Fightful Select, we now have confirmation that that is indeed the case, as despite recently holding both the IWGP World and NJPW STRONG Tag Team Championships prior to relinquishing the gold at Resurgence, the pair have been working without a contract.
Elsewhere in the report, Fightful Select provided an insight into the promotions making a play for Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher’s services, revealing that despite WWE holding an interest in the United Empire members, AEW feel confident in securing their signatures.
“Fightful Select learned that WWE had interest in Aussie Open, who had retained a rep for negotiations. However, the latest we’d heard as of Resurgence was that AEW was actually very confident that they were going to sign the duo.”
-Fightful
During their time with NJPW thus far, the pair have also made sporadic appearances for both AEW and ROH, with Fightful noting that several members of the tag team division are pushing for them to be signed full-time.
On the WWE side of things, the company have been in the middle of a hiring freeze in recent weeks due to the sale to Endeavor, although Aussie Open are believed to have some supporters within WWE pushing for their signing.
Regardless of their contract status, Fightful confirmed that short-term plans were in place for Aussie Open in AEW even before Mark Davis suffered what is now believed to be a meniscus injury. Touching on said injury, the report also revealed that according to those close to Aussie Open, Tony Khan paid for Davis’ surgery himself, despite the tag team not being under contract with AEW as of writing.
Kyle Fletcher was originally set to take on Orange Cassidy for the AEW International Championship on the May 17th episode of Dynamite, however due to illness, the bout was moved to tonight’s episode, with the bout opening up the show.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Aussie Open’s contract status as soon as we hear more, and we wish Mark Davis all the best in his recovery.
