Mike Bailey Opens Up On Almost Joining WWE NXT And His Current AEW Mentality

Mike Bailey reflects on almost joining NXT.

At present, ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey is one of AEW’s most exciting wrestlers. Having arrived on the scene just over a year ago, the Canadian has captured the imagination of fans as part of ‘JetSpeed’ alongside Kevin Knight, and many are looking forward to seeing where his career goes with the company. However, having previously received an offer from WWE to go to NXT, Mike Bailey has now opened up on how things could’ve been different for him.

Speaking to Masks, Mats & Mayhem, Bailey discussed the NXT offer that didn’t work out, touching on his current mindset in AEW.

“I know for me that after the pandemic, when my five year ban from the US had ended, I made that quite public and I got an offer to go to NXT, which I accepted. It didn’t work out because they changed their hiring guidelines or whatever. But when I accepted that offer to go to NXT, I knew that it wasn’t AEW, where people get to be themselves. I made peace with the fact that they might decide that I need to be someone else, that I need to be something else, that Speedball Mike Bailey is not what they need. And I knew that being an excellent professional wrestler, no matter the situation in which they put me, I was gonna kill it. I was gonna use the skill of pro wrestling that I have accumulated over the years to be the best in whatever situation they put us in. And that is the mentality that we’ve [JetSpeed] carried through AEW. We’re confident. We know we’re good. The Jet is too fly and he knows it. I know that I have 20 years of accumulated knowledge in professional wrestling. Have us do anything and we will kill it.”

-Mike Bailey

As he references, Mike Bailey was banned from the United States for five years in March 2016 after attempting to enter the country to wrestle without a valid work visa. In his time away, the star focused on competing in his homeland of Canada, as well as appearances in the UK and Japan. Once enough time had passed, he signed with IMPACT Wrestling, going on to become a three-time X-Division Champion.

While he’s yet to win a singles title in AEW, ‘Speedball’ has captured trios gold twice during his time with the company. After his JetSpeed partner won the TNT Championship at Dynasty, the 35-year-old will be hoping to follow in Kevin Knight’s footsteps by winning a championship on his own in the near future.

With his first 12 months with All Elite Wrestling now in the book, Bailey recently revealed his favourite matches to be part of since joining the promotion. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Mike Bailey as soon as we hear more.

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