After almost two years away from American television, Mercedes Mone is rapidly approaching her debut at AEW Big Business, a special television event in March coming to fans live from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts.

For Tony Khan, this is a pretty massive get, as he's been after Mone for over a year, soft debuting her at Wembley Stadium as part of All In 2023 before going quiet for the next six months. Despite a heavy push from WWE, TK has now landed three of the top stars to hit the open market in 2024 alongside Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada and will be able to reshape the top of his card however he sees fit.

Discussing the addition of Mone to the AEW roster on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T celebrated Mone for getting her money from the bank of Tony Khan, as there's nothing more exciting than financial security.

“Mone is about getting that paper, baby. You know, you saw the dollar signs, right? At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. If Mone couldn’t make a deal with WWE and the door’s there at AEW, I mean, why not do it? I mean, that’s — how many times have I seen it, man? How many times have I said? I mean, 1,000 times more,” Booker T explained via 411 Mania.

“When we talked, we was talking about Mone going to Japan, right? And that’s what Mone was going to be. That’s where she was gonna be. And how many times have I said it, d**mit? If you don’t have to work in Japan, you ain’t gonna work there. If you could work right here at home, you gonna do it. That grind in Japan is not like here in the United States. Those arenas are not like here in the United States. You can work the Tokyo Dome all you want, but it ain’t like being at home in a warm bed with a remote control in your hand.”

Alright, totally fair comments; working in Japan certainly isn't for everyone, and after picking up some of that pedigree, with Okada and Ospreay doing just about everything they could in NJPW and Mone becoming the IWGP Women's Champion in her first match in the promotion, there wasn't much use in working even more matches in Japan. Still, just because working for AEW is more convenient doesn't mean it's better, as even the best professional wrestlers are only as good as their booking. Booker, too, agreed with this statement, as he isn't going to go all in on Mone stock until he knows what TK has planned for her.

Booker T is cautiously optimistic about Mercedes Mone in AEW.

Turning his attention to what fans should expect from Mercedes Mone's debut and run in AEW, Booker T revealed that he isn't completely sure what her run in All Elite Land will look like, as the last time fans saw her in the ring, she suffered an injury and hasn't wrestled since May of last year.

Could Mone be the differencemaker AEW fans have been desperately hoping for, changing the women's division for the better long-term? Maybe yes, maybe no, but that has more to do with TK than her own individual efforts.

“The last time we saw Mone, she went out and had an injury. She’s hurt. When she comes back, and goes out there and does it, what version of Mone? Are we going to see? No no, this will be pretty much the first version of Mone that we have seen on American TV. So I got to see how this thing plays out. Sometimes when you get out of a system, sometimes when you’re not working with guys within that system, everything changes. It really does, and I say that because I’ve worked with guys in WCW. I’ve worked with guys in TNA, ECW, WWF, WWE. I’ve worked with a bunch of independent guys all over. So many guys, so my thing is when you change the system sometimes… when I finally got a chance to work with ECW guys after watching them on television, thinking those guys could work. And worked with them one time — RVD [is] an exception, a couple of guys an exception. But some of those guys, you go, ‘Wait a minute, I thought these guys could work,’ and they couldn’t work at all. And so you really have to be very, very careful when you step into a different situation.”

Can Tony Khan get the most out of Mercedes Mone, turning her into a performer worthy of her above-market price tag? Yes, Mone made the NJPW women's division, which barely exists, into appointment viewing and may be able to do the same for AEW if given a Toni Storm-level push to do whatever she pleases. Still, as Booker noted, fans will have to see it to believe it, as similar excitement surrounded the arrivals of performers like Saraya and Miro, and nothing has really come out of either of their runs save a few months – literally – as a champion.