Jake Atlas, who formerly worked for the WWE NXT brand, made his debut for All Elite Wrestling on Tuesday night. Atlas debuted during an AEW Dark Elevation taping in Jacksonville, taking on Serpentico. Atlas was victorious in the match.
Following the bout, AEW President and owner Tony Khan met Atlas on the ramp and shook his hand. While nothing has been made official, many took that to mean that Atlas has officially signed with the company. Check out the video below.
Atlas signed with WWE in 2019 after appearing with Stephanie McMahon on CBS’ Celebrity Undercover Boss in 2018. He had been garnering quite a bit of attention on the independent scene on the west coast prior to this and was looked at as a top tier signing at the time. He first served as an ambassador as part of WWE’s Be A Star program, then signed as a wrestler and made his debut appearance on an episode of NXT in April 2020.
That year, Atlas was involved in the NXT Cruiserweight Championship tournament. He defeated Drake Maverick and Tony Nese in his first two matches of the tournament before being defeated by Kushida. Later in the year, Atlas would feud with Santos Escobar for the cruiserweight title.
In early 2021, Atlas teamed with Isaiah “Swerve” Scott in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. The team lost to MSK in the tournament.
Following his WWE release, Atlas worked for GCW (Game Changer Wrestling) and ROH (Ring of Honor) this past fall. After briefly working for ROH, Atlas announced he was retiring from wrestling. His final match had been a loss to Taylor Rust at ROH’s Death Before Dishonor PPV show on September 12th. That changed on Tuesday evening.
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