On their way to the main roster, developing WWE talents typically hone their skills at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, which is also the homebase for the "WWE NXT" brand. A recent report from Fightful Select indicated that All Elite Wrestling, WWE's main competitor, also had discussions to launch its own training facility, with Asheville, North Carolina considered as one of the hosting spots. On the AEW WrestleDream media call, AEW President Tony Khan confirmed this to be the case.
"I am interested in it and it's something I've talked about," Khan said. "I was kind of surprised to see the report because I'm still interested in that. It's one of those things where you read something and there's a lot of truth to it, but then, when you're around the situation sometimes and you see something reported, sometimes, you say, okay, that's part of the story, but not the whole story."
According to Fightful, AEW had talks about implementing a training facility in Asheville early in 2025. FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood), Adam Copeland, Beth Phoenix were penciled in as the potential coaches. Due to the costs associated with building the project, however, AEW reportedly scrapped that plan at the time. As Khan himself additionally pointed out, the on-screen relationship between FTR and the Copeland household has also fractured since then.
"They are fantastic mentors to people, FTR, Cope, and Christian," Khan said, "but clearly, earlier this year the dynamic and the friendship between Adam Copeland and FTR changed a lot. At some point, if we can all get back on the same page, because I know I still get along great of all four of them, I would love to have those guys reunite and be able to rekindle that project we did talk about, which is a real idea about having FTR and Copeland with an AEW-affiliated training school, and working with them and having that project be in their hometown in Asheville, North Carolina."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
