Shocking everyone at the 6th Anniversary of AEW Dynamite, Andrade El Idolo made his return to the company in attacking Kenny Omega.
Andrade left AEW at the end of World’s End 2023 in a loss to Miro. It would end up being the last match of Miro (and CJ Perry) as well in the company.
Andrade El Idolo returned to WWE in 2024 at their Royal Rumble event, which was followed by next to nothing. Oh, he won the WWE Speed Championship from Ricochet before Ricochet left to All Elite Wrestling. He took part in a best of seven series with Carmelo Hayes that was won by the special guest referee of the seventh match somehow. They had him in a tag team with Rey Fenix as sort of a, “Well we have Penta doing other stuff so you’re the new Lucha Brother” team before he was fired.
WWE had fired him due to, “numerous WWE wellness violations over the last year” according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider despite none of those wellness violations being made public and Andrade never missing time. It’s always good when our pro wrestling journalists just spew out what they are told with no extra investigations on the claims.
Andrade’s exit with AEW was also a bit of a mystery. At least for me. The Wrestling Observer claim is that his contract with AEW expired in December 2023 and Andrade never made it aware to Tony Khan he was leaving. Andrade is already refuting that publicly:
My issue has always been that Andrade signed a deal with All Elite Wrestling in June of 2021, exactly three months after he was granted his release from WWE in March. June of 2021 to December 2023 is 31 months. Ever heard of someone signing a 31 month contract? Andrade went down to injury with a torn pectoral in late 2022 and returned in June of 2023, so if anything, he would have had injury time added to his contract. Instead his contract was a few months shy of a 3 year contract?
It makes far more sense, since Andrade had a reputation at the time for not wanting to put wrestlers in AEW over (as many former WWE guys were getting that reputation) that sometime in September, Andrade agreed to do some losses on the way out and get out of his contract early. He lost to Jay White on Collision in September, Bryan Danielson in October, and then entered the first AEW Continental Classic in December. He took losses to Claudio Castagnoli and Eddie Kingston to miss the playoffs of the round robin, before losing to Miro at World’s End.
I know Tony Khan himself said Andrade’s contract was up, but it absolutely feels more like his contract was up because Tony decided to let him leave. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Andrade had a really weird 30/31 month contract, or maybe he had a 24 month contract and had injury time of 6 months added (he was out longer than six months but whatever) though that flies in the face of what was reported at the time of it being a three year contract. Something said by Andrade in an interview.
None of this adds up to the story Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has reported, and while he might have got his story from AEW directly, it’s much like Mike Johnson just feeding people whatever he’s told from WWE. You have to actually ask questions about this stuff instead of just immediately assuming what you’re told when it doesn’t add up.
All of this doesn’t even give me time to talk about how many said Andrade is the first to jump from AEW to WWE to AEW. He is the first to jump WWE to AEW to WWE to AEW, but the first to just jump AEW to WWE to AEW? Pay your respects to Cole Karter. Was he signed to AEW when he left or just working spot shows? I don’t know don’t ruin this one chance I have to write about Cole Karter!
But let’s talk about the Prodigal son we have here in Andrade El Idolo. The Prodigal El Idolo.
I will admit I am a big fan of Andrade and I am sympathetic to him more than I might be other wrestlers. A big part of it is he’s an incredible pro wrestler. He can turn it on like few others can. I don’t need him cutting great promos. I just need him absolutely banging in the ring. He left AEW having an incredible Continental Classic and returns right before the 2025 CC. How can you not want to see him returning in it?
He’s also one of the few wrestlers I can say did not have a great run in AEW and it wasn’t his fault. AEW put him with some really putrid groups and managers. Everyone seems to forget he made his debut with Vickie Guerrero. Then flipped to Chavo Guerrero a month later. Then thrown into a feud with Cody Rhodes when Cody wasn’t done with Malakai Black and we didn’t realize Cody was on his way out. Did Andrade get to beat Cody before he left? No, Cody needed his win in Atlanta.
What does AEW do to get Andrade back on track? Joins Matt Hardy’s Hardy Family Office. He made the most of it by feuding with Darby Allin and Sting which led to him basically trying to buy Darby from Sting.
They temporarily had him run his own Family Office in the Andrade Family Office before dropping it to have him and RUSH team as La Faccion Ingobernable, the faction everyone had been shouting at the company to form since day one. That at least was halted by Andrade’s hands after he got in an altercation with Sammy Guevara and sent home. He was later injured with the previously mentioned torn pectoral. But think about that first year or so in the company. It was not handled well by AEW. They did not know what they had with Andrade.
Andrade made his return on the debut of Collision when AEW was doing the split brands. He came back as a babyface and did a weird three versus one feud with the House of Black where they feuded over the mask he takes off when coming to the ring. Wow, whoever was helping Tony Khan book Collision had some brilliant ideas. At the very least we got a good ladder match between Andrade and Buddy Matthews. It was here they had CJ Perry start managing Andrade (making it the fourth time they’ve had an awful idea of who should represent and speak for Andrade after Vickie, Chavo, and Matt Hardy) before they finally did the right thing with Andrade: wrestle. Just wrestle.
Andrade had a fantastic showing in the Continental Classic with incredible matches against Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Claudio Castagnoli, Daniel Garcia, and Brody King. He then closed things off with the feud with Miro and left the company.
I don’t think anyone would be credible in saying that All Elite Wrestling gave Andrade every opportunity to succeed. They did not. They gave him terrible managers, they put him in terrible factions, and had him mostly in bad programs. Now AEW has a second chance with Andrade, and Andrade has a second chance with AEW.
This second chance I hope both sides are ready for.
I hope Andrade is ready to work anyone and let the story go where it goes. I hope AEW, if handed new trust by Andrade, takes that trust and puts him in programs where he can be a wrestling demon. You have him in the Don Callis Family which features multiple other wrestling demons like Konosuke Takeshita, Kazuchika Okada, Kyle Fletcher, and Josh Alexander. Andrade can match any of them, but he has to also find his own ways to stand out. Having this program with Kenny Omega is a great way to do it.
Win or lose, Andrade gets a big pay per view match to kick his time off, and Don Callis has already proven he is actually a good manager that helps get his wrestlers over on television. Andrade can form something with the other luchadors in the DCF like Hechicero and El Clon, and chase the Trios Championship soon after. It remains to be seen if he does anything with his former friends in LFI, but it’s hard to see with Sammy Guevara now in the faction. Maybe those two can smooth things out.
AEW is putting a significant amount of trust in Andrade to have him work Kenny Omega in his return, as Kenny Omega isn’t the best of health, and they felt Kenny wouldn’t be close enough to his own 100% to run a program with Kyle Fletcher. I’m sure that still happens, but it would be good for Kenny to beat Andrade here and then move into that Fletcher program for Full Gear. Show that Andrade can take a loss to the Best Bout Machine and then move to something else. Like I said, getting gold on him like the Trios Championship would go a long way in building a relationship there and a run that not only destroys the last run he had in WWE? But his last run in AEW.
Of course, all that hope would ignore how often it seems like Andrade has issues in these promotions. It’s hard to bank on a guy who already left you once already, and while Andrade said he left on good terms, it’s pretty clear it wasn’t a smooth ride the whole time. If things go south with Andrade, we at least know AEW won’t be gun shy in letting him leave. WWE trying to claim he was this flagrant wellness policy breaker will likely burn that bridge, though WWE will do whatever it takes to hurt AEW so if they think bringing Andrade back would they will. I just don’t believe the reason Andrade wanted to go back to WWE so badly is there anymore.
What’s important is for AEW to focus on what makes Andrade a valuable asset instead of trying to reinvent any wheel with him. He’s a great wrestler who likes to wrestle and wants to wrestle. So give him the TV time to wrestle and have great matches. The more great matches you get out of him? The better of an acquisition he is. Do that, and you won’t have to worry about how much you can trust him. The one place you know you can is in the ring. That’s why he’s feuding with Kenny Omega. So keep that up and you won’t ever feel burned.
I for one am hoping for the best of this run. There’s a lot of departures from All Elite Wrestling where I never want to see that person step foot in the ring again. There’s also a few on the sidelines waiting for their contracts to expire who I would prefer AEW to just let them leave now and get it over with. Remove them from the AEW Roster page. But Andrade is one of the few I wanted to see return and I’m glad he did. Now it’s time to see that you can go back home, when your home is the home of professional wrestling.
