PAC now free to make All Elite Wrestling debut

If PAC is ever showing up in AEW, the time could come soon as he dropped his Open The Dream Gate championship this weekend.

One of All Elite Wrestling’s early signings was PAC, a longtime fixture in the Dragon Gate promotion in Japan and also well-known as Neville in NXT and WWE. At February’s AEW rally in Las Vegas, “Hangman” Adam Page challenged PAC to a match at May’s Double or Nothing event, a bout at the time expected to result in the winner facing Chris Jericho for the inaugural AEW Championship at All Out on Labor Day weekend.

But just one week ahead of Double or Nothing, PAC announced that he would not be facing Page nor appearing as part of AEW for the foreseeable future. There were numerous theories about PAC dropping out, ranging from visa issues to PAC’s loyalty to Dragon Gate. He was, at the time, the company’s Open The Dream Gate champion, and was unwilling to lose a match in another promotion while holding the Dragon Gate title.

But if PAC’s Dragon Gate commitments were the reason for his AEW absence, then there could soon be developments on that front. Over the weekend, PAC lost the Open The Dream Gate championship to Ben-K (h/t Italo Santana), something that could pave the way for PAC to arrive in AEW, perhaps ahead of or at All Out on August 31.

In an interview with Chris Van Vliet earlier in July, The Young Bucks — who are also AEW Executive Vice Presidents — said (via Cageside Seats) that PAC remains a priority signing for AEW and added that they were “pretty much at 99 percent” of the way there in terms of getting him completely in the fold.

Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio said in May that PAC was only under a part-time contract with AEW that allowed him to prioritize his Dragon Gate commitments. But now that PAC is no longer a champion for Dragon Gate, perhaps his schedule will lighten up and allow him to be more involved in AEW storylines.

But with the Bucks indicating recently that an agreement was close between AEW and PAC and PAC dropping his title this weekend, it seems safe to assume that PAC will be stepping into an AEW ring at some point sooner than later.