There were conversations between Pat Buck and AEW when the company first launched.
After WrestleMania 38, Pat Buck submitted his request to be released from WWE. Several weeks later, he was working for All Elite Wrestling. Buck is a co-founder of Create A Pro Wrestling Academy which has produced the likes of MJF, Max Caster and Kris Statlander.
Buck spent the last several years of his career with WWE as a producer. He guest appeared on AEW Unrestricted with Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards and stated that he had talks with AEW in 2019, but ended up taking the job with WWE. Buck is glad things turned out the way they did because he was able to sharpen his skill set.
I feel like this was meant to be [him being at AEW] and when this was early on, AEW was starting, this was the place that — there were talks early on and it was like right around the time that I took the job with WWE. It just wasn’t — so much things were happening here that I ended up, you know, going to WWE but I’m so glad that-that happened because now I feel like my toolbox and my skill set is extremely sharpened in terms of production and structure and a lot of things like that. Now I get to be here with everybody and do my best to try to make this a little bit of a better place.
The Monday after WrestleMania was when Buck requested his release from WWE. Within a 24 hour time frame, he had been contacted by a talent from AEW who informed him that Tony Khan wanted to speak with him.
Buck and Khan reached an agreement and Buck said he is surprised that the news of him joining AEW did not come out sooner. He credited the locker room for not letting that information spill out immediately.
I’ve never really said this story, but I submitted my release on a Monday morning, post-WrestleMania before Raw and I was on a plane ride back and a certain talent texted me, ‘Hey, Tony would like to speak with you on Wednesday.’ So, I guess you can say it was a short 12 hours or maybe a little bit longer, maybe 24 hours — can’t do the math in my head — of going from one place to another which is pretty wild but it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.
And I think people would assume that, you know — when I quit WWE, I didn’t have this lined up. Did I hope in my heart that I would be here? For sure. Did I hope that Tony [Khan] would recognize this and maybe there’s a thing there? But I took a gamble on myself and I think that by what just happened and being here, it didn’t get out for quite a while so I was quite shocked and that goes to show you the different kind of respect people have in the locker room. I’m like, it was actually kind of funny. Even extras that were booked that day, some of them were booked — I booked for WrestleMania and the shows like a week ago and they walked in there like, what the heck is this? Credit to our locker room for having that respect. It got out a couple weeks later but that shocked me and I thought that was a cool thing.
Fellow AEW producer Sonjay Dutt came out of retirement at the 7/27 Rampage taping. He teamed with Jay Lethal and Satnam Singh to take on Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit AEW Unrestricted with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
