Court Bauer Discusses Working With Different Companies, Confirms Talks With WWE

The forbidden door is open in wrestling and companies all across the world are working together.

Major League Wrestling has struck partnerships with AAA, Dragon Gate, The Crash, and most recently NJPW with Will Ospreay set to make his MLW debut in the fall.

Speaking on the MLW Media Call ahead of MLW Fightland, MLW Founder Court Bauer discussed his philosophy when it comes to working with different companies.

“We’re talking with different offices about bringing their talent in and doing some international title matches. As for domestic partnerships, that’s where it gets a little tricky,” he said. “We’ve had talks, people are probably aware, we talked with WWE earlier this year. You have these conversations, try to see how it would work, and the biggest concern you have, at least for me, is you’re kind of inviting tortious interference and allowing it to happen if you go down that road and if you don’t feel like you’re getting enough in return to even take that risk, what are you doing? What’s the strategy there? It can be very complicated, whether it’s WWE or another company. It can be risky because often the talent, when they come through, you’re not going to now be able to control the creative for. These guys you spent a lot of time building up are now not in your system and now they are main event stars in MLW, but they go over there for a cameo and they’re not treated like top guys, you’re doing a disservice to them and your fans that have invested in their journey. It’s a really delicate thing and every conversation with every company is different. It’s a bit of a dance and sometimes it’s the forbidden dance.”

On April 30, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported that MLW and WWE were “in talks” about a potential working agreement. Fightful Select reported “preliminary conversations have happened, and the talks go ‘high up’ in WWE.

Fightful Select recently reported that WWE had a hand in nixing a potential streaming deal for MLW.

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