When news broke that Brian Pillman Jr. would be leaving AEW at the end of his contract, fans wondered what would be in store for the “Son of a Loose Cannon.”

Would he go back to MLW, where he was booked prominently before leaving for AEW? Or how about Impact, where the X Division is always looking for new stars with name recognition, as they've proven with performers like Lio Rush?

Well, as it turns out, the 30-year-old from Erlanger, Kentucky, opted to swing for the fences and sign with WWE, where he was afforded a chance to get a little extra seasoning under the watchful eyes at the performance center. While some fans wondered how the promotion would treat the second-generation Superstar, be that leaning into his Hall of Fame father's past or attempting something new, forging his own character without his famous father's name a la Von Wagner and Bron Breakker?

Well, as it turns out, the answer fell somewhere in the middle, as in his opening promo for the promotion, he acknowledged his family before vowing to forge something all his own.

“My father was one of the most infamous Superstars in this business. Everywhere I go, people stop to tell me, ‘Man, I loved your dad. Such a trailblazer he was.' It seems like everybody has such fond memories of my father. Well, you know who doesn't? Me, his own d*mn son. I lost him when I was just four years old, I don't know him. I lost him when I was just four years old, I don't know him. And you'd think being a WWE Superstar would be the last thing that I'd wanna be. And you're right. And trust me, I've tried, I've tried everything, I've tried football, lacrosse, h*ll, I even have a college degree. But this industry has been in my blood since birth, and I could never escape it. I've got no choice but to embrace it,” Brian Pillman Jr said.

“I have no choice but to inflict pain on the very business that has brought me so much grief. But when they see this face, I don't want them to think about my dead father; I want them to think about me. I'm nobody's junior. And from this day forward, I'm gonna take on the last name of the real man who raised me, the real father figure in my life. And his name was King. And now, so is mine.”

No junior, eh? Dang, BPJ turned in more character work in that one two-minute segment than he did over his entire career in AEW, with fans joking that Christian Cage decimated him so badly in his final segment for Tony Khan's company that he had to distance himself from his father's name and legacy. Still, if Lexis King is the plan moving forward, 921,000 NXT fans were afforded a wonderful introduction.

 Jim Cornette believes AEW should have cut Brian Pillman Jr. earlier.

While it's nice to see Brian Pillman Jr. finally freed up to become his own character, instead of trying to live in his father's shadow, some, like former MLW stalwart Jim Cornette, wish he was afforded a chance to try something new a whole lot sooner, instead of being stuck in the mud of AEW's non-existent developmental system.

Discussing Pillman's free agency on his Drive-Thru podcast, Cornette noted that he wished the two sides would have split a whole lot sooner, as the second-generation star needed some seasoning that AEW just wasn't providing on Dark or Dark Elevation.

“It’s about time, and I wish they’d done it sooner. Because it’s been obvious for, what, how long, that they weren’t going to do anything with him [Brian Pillman Jr]. He was not going to be featured on any of the television programs,” Jim Cornette said on his podcast via Sportskeeda. “We don’t know what they did on YouTube. But we’ve also heard that the YouTube matches were just, you know, just rapid-fire matches. Just, you know, three minutes with green guys against green guys… He wasn’t learning anything.”

Recalling how much goodwill Pillman had for a time in professional wrestling due to his appearance on Darkside of the Ring, Cornette noted that, after that door closed, so did his opportunities in AEW.

“They had a period of time, there was a window there… He had sympathy, remember?” Cornette said. “He had people kind of behind him. You saw him a few times on TV, and he didn’t do anything – he wasn’t allowed to do anything remarkable or memorable. And then you didn’t see him anymore, and that window closed.”

Will Pillman's run in NXT turn out better than his time in AEW? Maybe yes, maybe no, but considering how little he was featured on AEW Television from 2019-23, it's safe to say WWE doesn't have a very high bar to clear.