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AEW Announces Latest Signing
AEW EVP Cody Rhodes has announced Red Velvet has officially signed with the promotion.
Cody tweeted, “At The Crossroads @AEWonTNT event squaring off against @SHAQ & Jade…Red stepped up in a huge way! @TonyKhan saw what over a million people saw that night and upgraded her contract. She’s ALL ELITE now! Let’s stir it up my friend.”
At The Crossroads @AEWonTNT event squaring off against @SHAQ & Jade…Red stepped up in a huge way! @TonyKhan saw what over a million people saw that night and upgraded her contract. She’s ALL ELITE now! Let’s stir it up my friend. pic.twitter.com/1bJ2JVx280
— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) March 25, 2021
Rhodes mentioned Velvet has had her contract “upgraded”, seemingly moving her from a tier 0 to tier 1 deal with the company.
Last year, during an episode of AEW Unrestricted, Rhodes explained how tiered contracts in the promotion worked. (h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription)
“Agree to appear is a tier 0 meaning you’ll get a bonus, which Tony’s super super generous. If you ask some of these extras what they’re making for being there (Rhodes takes a moment), my dad would have lost it,” Rhodes remarked. “But he’s right. It’s COVID era. They have no other work. There’s no indies. Tier 0 is just a signing bonus and exclusivity to us in terms of we get a first option on you I believe is how it works, and we guarantee you x amount of dates, five dates.
“The exclusivity thing is case by case, but we guarantee you x amount of dates. The goal is you don’t want to pay someone agree to appear, Chris Harrington would handle this much better than I am, you don’t want to keep giving them their weekly, their weekly, their weekly, their weekly vs. tier 1-ing them, which is our base contractor agreement. That’s another thing, we’re just talking about Tony, we built a middle card and a lower card. We have tier 1’s, tier 2’s, tier 3’s, tier 4 and tier Jericho.”
Red Velvet had a major role in the feud between Cody and Shaquille O’Neil, teaming with Rhodes against Shaq and Jade Cargill on AEW Dynamite earlier this month.
Red Velvet has been a regular on AEW programming since last summer.