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Select Answers: Rusev And Aleister Back To AEW?, ROH As Developmental, Otis

Added 2025-10-13 16:00:09 +0000 UTC

Welcome to Select Answers, a short feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.

When aggregating these posts please refer to it as "Fightful Select Answers Q&A" and tag Fightful, noting that it was in the Q&A format to avoid confusion.

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Considering how poorly the WWE has been using Rusev and Black since their return to the company, what are the chances that one or both leave again and return to AEW?

I wouldn't count on it, but I don't think it's the craziest thing to ever happen. I've always been told that there isn't really a bridge that has been burned in AEW, and if so, it'd be only one or two people, and Miro and Malakai Black weren't those people. There were some ups and downs, but I haven't heard of anything that crossed the threshold of never returning. In the 90s, we saw Jeff Jarrett, Dustin Rhodes. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash both went from WCW to WWF to WCW, then came back after the sale. It was way more common than people realize -- Rick Rude, Road Warriors, William Regal, Sid, all did it. Some of them with ECW stints sprinkled in.

Does AEW plan on having its own training center in the future and using ROH as a developmental brand?

There had been some tentative plans or pitches years ago. Including once upon a time Ace Steel being slated as a person to take control of it. However, when he was let go, that was sort of abandoned. There is a ring in a warehouse that AEW talent use sometimes. I believe Mercedes had posted some videos of it a while back. I looked into it and was told the facility has existed for quite some time.

Where's and Otis?

With Otis, he had an elbow scope this year, came back and did AAA, and has just pretty much been on Main Event after that. Although he's not appeared on Main Event in a month, and a I think his last match ended up being a dark match. I don't think he's got an injury or anything, or at least didn't the last time I heard.