Last month, Sports Illustrated first reported that former IWGP United States Champion Lance Archer was in deep talks with All Elite Wrestling. Since then, there haven't been many updates regarding the situation... until now.
According to PWInsider, the NJPW star could end up making his debut with the promotion next month. At the moment, it hasn’t been confirmed that Archer signed with AEW; however, New Japan Pro-Wrestling revealed their bracket for the 32-man New Japan Cup tournament and the 42-year-old is not in the brackets.
Interestingly enough, Jim Ross recently asnwered a fan question about who AEW was looking to sign next, and the commentator made it clear that the company was looking for big athletic guys and actually mentions Archer by name (transcript courtesy of
ringseidenews.com):
“Yeah, size. Athletic big guys. You know guys… I don’t know who all’s signed, but you know I’m a fan of Lance Archer. I’m a big fan of Jeff Cobb. I’m a big fan of the former Harper in WWE.”
“Guys like that who have ability that we all can see that have not been given the total opportunity to become a global star with the spotlight on them. I like those kind guys because all those guys I just mentioned are from athletic backgrounds. So, that means to me that since a kid they’ve been competitive so that’s important because this business is not easy.”
We'll keep you updated when more information surrounding Lance Archer signing with AEW comes to light.