The contract offer was something Fox never thought would happen for him.
Back in November, after AR Fox tagged with Top Flight (Darius & Dante Martin) to challenge Death Triangle (PAC, Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) for the AEW World Trios Titles, Fox was interviewed backstage and informed that he was being offered an AEW contract.
Fox was the latest guest on AEW Unrestricted and shared that his reaction was one of genuine shock. He did have a feeling it was going to happen when Sonjay Dutt pulled Lexy Nair to the side before she conducted the interview. Fox had been of the mindset that a major contract offer was never coming his way.
It just took me off guard (receiving the news that I was being offered an AEW deal). I’m super humble, but also, in a way, I almost had that gut feeling. Only because right before we were about to do it, Sonjay (Dutt) called Lexy (Nair) back over real quick and whispered something in her ear and my gut just sank and I was like — because I don’t know. I’ve just been doing it for so long that I thought, I don’t know. I thought it was done and past me really getting a shot, you know what I mean? So I was just kind of happy to be there. But yeah, it was crazy. I’m kind of still speechless about it. It took me off guard is the first thing and then all these thoughts were coming through my head and I don’t know how to feel or what to think but yeah, I’ll never forget it. I don’t know, I can’t really describe it. My reaction is still the same. Pretty much, I’m just kind of speechless about it. I just thought that would never happen and it was unbelievable to me.
He began working on Dark and Dark: Elevation in the summer of 2022. He contacted Shawn Dean, who he trained, and told him that he was willing to travel wherever and was willing to do whatever is asked of him.
I trained Shawn Dean. I had a hand in training him. I heard he had a hand in booking (AEW) Dark… yeah, I just told him, I just asked him, ‘I’m willing to do it. I’ll go wherever you need, I don’t care what I do, I don’t care if I get anything but hey man, I wanna try to give this thing a full ditch effort,’ you know what I mean? And I told him, you know, ‘I’ll do my best and I’ll show up. I’ll do whatever I have to do.’ They were coming to Atlanta, that was the first one I did. I just tried to make the most of it. I had a six-man tag, we had five minutes. I’d never done TV or nothing like that. I’m only kind of used to having these long, 20 minute indie matches. That was an experience for me too. I was like, hey, you got this much time but I’m still doing it. Okay, alright. I’m just gonna get it in there one way or another. So that was my thought process on it.
When it comes to that first trios match with Top Flight, Fox found out about it after he recorded his match for Dark. He had been watching Rampage and heard Excalibur previewing the upcoming cards for AEW programming.
While I was doing (AEW) Dark and I was just seeing when the next Darks were and stuff like that, I was watching Rampage. Excalibur was doing what’s gonna happen at Dynamite… And then he announced Death Triangle versus Top Flight and A.R. Fox. My head was actually down at the time and I was messing with my phone and I looked up and I seen a picture of me on TV so that’s how I found out about the Death Triangle match.
Outside of the Trios Titles, Fox does have singles title aspirations including the TNT and World Championships.
The World Title is a long-term goal for him, but he does feel he has to improve on the microphone before he heads into that territory.
We’re (Fox & Top Flight) definitely gonna go after the (AEW) Trios Titles so that would be cool. I wanna win a title of course, you know? And I wanna main event some kind of show. My long-term goal, it’d be the Trios Titles first. That would be cool and maybe the TNT Title, that’d be cool but I feel like every wrestler wants to have the world title but I know that that’s down the line and I would have to build myself a lot to even be in that so that would be the ultimate long-term goal, the world championship because I’ve wrestled on every lower-level place, right? And I’ve always won the title at them all. I feel like every time I do AEW, that’s something I kind of tell myself. It’s the same thing — not the same thing but, we got crazy talent at AEW. It’s crazy. Those guys go crazy too, they go 100 percent but so, on the indies, they’re not as good by far. They’re still working on it and they always don’t give 100 percent so like, 90 percent of the time, I stole the show on the indies so at AEW, I’m like, man, it ain’t nothing new. I’m gonna steal the show and I’m gonna win the title. I kind of tell myself that so, you know, I wanna win the world title eventually but I’d have to learn how to talk a little bit too though, in the ring, on the mic. Not just strictly about wrestling. I can talk about wrestling all day but I gotta get that down before I probably have a world title.
This Friday on Rampage, Fox and Top Flight are getting another shot at the World Trios Titles when they take on The Elite (Kenny Omega, Matt & Nick Jackson).
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit AEW Unrestricted with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
