When both of the top two wrestling promotions in the world are willing to make you the highest-paid woman in the business, what becomes the deciding factor in which one to join?
Mercedes Moné recently had to figure that out before signing with AEW and making her much anticipated debut at Big Business in Boston. Though Moné has told ESPN that money was of course a factor, it’s clear that both AEW and WWE were willing to pay her handsomely.
According to PWI, the difference between the two offers came down to where she perceived the greater opportunity to do new things both in and out of the ring.
PWInsider.com is told that in the end, the final factor in the decision-making as to where to go on Mone’s part was which destination would allow for stronger potential, not just for herself but for additional and future women in professional wrestling.
In AEW, Moné has not only a host of new wrestlers to work both with and against. She also has a more direct path to being positioned as the promotion’s top women’s star, as opposed to WWE where it could be argued that Becky Lynch, Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley are all at the same level.
It’s also clear that Moné has interests outside wrestling, including acting and music, that she may not have been as free to pursue in WWE.
From PWInsider:
Beyond Mone’s acting pursuits, PWInsider.com is also told that over the last several years, by being outside the WWE bubble, she has had the chance to develop fashion and music projects that she wants to keep bringing to the forefront. Those interests grew exponentially while she was recovering from her leg injury over the last year.
At the end of the day, the belief from those close to Mone is that the best way she could keep developing and working on her passions beyond performing in the ring was to be in a place that would allow her to still develop her projects, not just sign up to return to WWE, where all her energy would be targeted on WWE 90% of the time. AEW provided more of a balance.
The thought here is that in WWE, top stars certainly can reach a wider audience but build up fame and fortune for the brand first and themselves second. In AEW, that formula might be flipped on its head in return for having a smaller reach.
For Moné that might not matter, as she has the brand recognition, for lack of a better way to describe it, that she build up first in WWE (albeit under a different name). There might not be too many women’s wrestling stars for whom this calculus would work out in exactly the same way, but it’s a choice she seems satisfied with for the foreseeable future.
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