Well folks, it's official: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Kevin Patrick announced on SmackDown that Jade Cargill is heading to WWE.

That's right, no surprise debut, no moniker change, or no nothing; when Graves said “a storm is coming,” the opening lines of Cargill's AEW theme song, it effectively let it be known that much like Cody Rhodes, his one-time mixed tag team opponent is going to be making the jump without undergoing a significant character change.

Discussing the decision to jump from one promotion to the other, Matt Hardy explained that, in his opinion, Cargill picked the perfect time to jump from AEW to WWE, as she's leaving Tony Khan's promotion with a very promising presentation.

“It’s a good call. There’s a ton of untapped potential in here, it’s gonna be really interesting to see how it plays out. WWE is trying to treat her like a star, they’re trying to give her the biggest boost possible to really have her blast off into superstardom and they’re doing it the right way,” Matt Hardy said via Fightful.

“She left AEW at the optimal time when you think about it, she had this big push, she had been undefeated, she had one loss, she went away for a while, came back and then she announces to management that she’s going to go to WWE. She has one more loss, and then off to WWE. She’s leaving about as unblemished as you can leave.”

Asked how WWE should debut Cargill, Hardy kept things simple: When the storm hits WWE, she needs to look like a star.

“She has the look of the star. When it comes to a female wrestler, she’s Vince McMahon’s perfect wrestler. Vince would love that look I can tell you, big, pretty girl who’s pretty, muscular and athletic,” Hardy declared. “It’s going to be really interesting to see how it goes. One thing I’m interested in is to see how her work translates into longer matches, like if she’s doing main events as opposed to shorter matches. I think that’s going to be the determining factor, if she can go and produce those great, long, and competitive main event matches. That’s going to be the point where she has to prove herself more than anywhere else.”

Is Cargill truly an aesthetic match made in heaven with WWE? Yes, but as Hardy said, that's only half of the battle; if Cargill can't work, then her ceiling will forever be capped.

Thunder Rosa believes Jade Cargill is a no-brainer addition to WWE.

Stopping by Busted Open Radio for her near-weekly chat with David LaGreca, Thunder Rosa was asked about Jade Cargill's decision to leave AEW for WWE.

Though Rosa and Cargill don't exactly have recent history together, as they haven't wrestled a match since all the way back in 2021, the former knew her former co-worker was going to be a star from the moment she first saw her in Jacksonville.

“I remember when she first came, and her first training with all of us when we were in [Daily's Place] in Jacksonville. Now, remember, she always wears this beautiful two-piece [ensemble] to exercise, and I saw her and she came and she did some stuff. This is at a time when I was really, really scouting for Women for Mission Pro, and I just looked at her and I looked at a couple of my coworkers and I was like, ‘She's gonna be a star,'” Thunder Rosa said via Wrestling Inc. “I didn't know she was gonna get signed or anything. We didn't know nothing, and I was like, ‘She's the next one. She just has it, everything. Her look, the hair, everything about her calls ‘superstar.'”

Asked if she's surprised to see Cargill jump to WWE, Rosa responded no, as, in her opinion, there isn't a more ready-made Superstar around.

“I think it was a no-brainer for her, honestly, to make this decision, especially if she wanted to do WrestleMania and if she wanted to wrestle some of the really established, big stars in WWE,” Rosa declared. “So, I am very, very happy for her because she deserves this opportunity.”

On paper, it makes sense why basically every wrestler who is asked about Cargill believes she'll be an even bigger star in WWE than in AEW; she has a million-dollar look, she can talk very well, and on television, WWE rarely books the sort of matches that would expose Cargill's inexperience in the ring. But to truly get over, Cargill needs to join Bianca Belair, Asuka, Becky Lynch, and even Charlotte Flair in the good-to-very good main event match category of wrestler, something her time in AEW left very much up in the air.