As noted before, Dragon Lee signed an official contract with WWE this past December and was scheduled to report to their Performance Center this past January to begin his WWE career in their NXT developmental brand.
Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that the reason for the delay in Lee’s start of his WWE career is due to work visa-related issues. Meltzer reported that NXT officials wanted to officially debut Lee at Saturday’s Vengeance Day 2023 event in Charlotte, North Carolina but were unable to do so due to these issues.
Meltzer also provided more details on WWE’s recent partnership deal with Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling promotion. During the NXT Vengeance Day 2023 post-show media scrum on Saturday, NXT head booker Shawn Michaels stated that Ivy Nile’s upcoming appearance for ROW was only a “one-time” type deal. Meltzer reported that those spoken to stated that ROW officials currently believe this partnership is not a one-off and are expecting to be able to use NXT talents for their shows from time to time.
Meltzer also reported that several other indie promotions have had talks with WWE regarding potential partnership deals similar to ROW. Meltzer speculated that WWE likely is also targeting indie promotions who currently are in a good working relationship with AEW as a way to potentially snag those promotions away from AEW.
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