Since Tony Khan founded the promotion in 2019, the pipeline between AEW and WWE has largely flowed one way.

Sure, there have been notable defectors from the black and gold brand to Titan Tower, with Cody Rhodes, Gigi Dolin, and Blair Davenport all turning in their All Elite badges in favor of runs for The Fed, but when you look at any given AEW card, it's hard not to find a former WWE talent, as everyone from Chris Jericho to FTR, The Outcasts, and even Adam Cole all had extensive runs for the Endeavor-owned company before jumping shot to greener pastures.

So, naturally, when an AEW star mentions a desire to wrestle for WWE, it's newsworthy by default because it almost never happens. Fortunately, for fans of WWE, NXT, and just of palace intrigue in general, that rainbow-caliber event happened in the weirdest venue of all: an apartment loaded with French cheese. That's right, joining SO CATCH by Hal 2 for a very special episode built around eating cheese, Bandido mentioned a desire to work for WWE at some point in the future, as he loved his brief time at the performance center in the past.

“At some point, I would like to go to WWE,” Bandido said via Fightful. “Not in this moment, but I hope after… later. I was in WWE, they invited me to the Performance Center. They gave me a Camaro all that week to drive. That was amazing. I made good amigos. Chris Hero, I saw him in the Performance Center, and now he’s a really, really good friend. I love you, amigo. He’s very nice.”

Whoa, is Bandido going to leave AEW for WWE, who have shown interest in him in the past on multiple occasions? At some point down the line, potentially so, but for now, it would appear he's happy to be a member of AEW, as he noted elsewhere in the interview.

“I think that is a very important and fantastic night for me,” Bandido said. “AEW is like a dream to my life. When I took a match against Chris Jericho, that was fantastic. Fantastic match, fantastic night; everything was amazing. I really, really enjoyed [it].”

How would Bandido fit in WWE? Would he be allowed to keep his mast and identifiers like Dragon Lee? Would he have to change his entire gimmick like some of the members of Lucha Houseparty? Or is there some middle ground a la Santos Escobar, who got a new name and look but was able to keep his father's legacy not as El Hijo del Fantasma but as a member of Legado Del Fantasma? If it happens, fans will find out.

FTR fear that Cody Rhodes could become the modern-day Lex Luger.

Speaking of professional wrestling stars who jumped from one promotion to another, Dax Harwood of FTR decided to weigh in on Cody Rhodes' loss at WrestleMania 39 on his podcast, FTR with Dax Harwood, and let it be known to his co-host, Matt Koon, and the fans listening along that he fears “letting the story play out” could kill “The American Nightmare's push” just like it did to Lex Lugar back in the day.

“Imagine, if people would have said, ‘well it's SummerSlam, WrestleMania 10 is around the corner,” Harwood said via Fightful. “Let the story play out.' We did, we let the story play out. Letting that story play out, it killed Lex Luger. I saw other people who said Cody had to overcome more adversity. He tore his pec. Thousands of people in the arena saw it. Hundreds of thousands saw it on the pay-per-view. I don't know if you can overcome any more adversity than that. On top of that, if we only want to keep it storyline driven, just show a one-minute package of his prior WWE career and what he had to overcome there. Before he left, the man was Stardust. Show how he had to overcome and made himself into a main event level star and then have him come out on top. It's okay for the good guy to win sometimes. I feel he should have, that's my opinion. I feel he should have won.”

You know, it's really hard to argue with Harwood's assertion that Rhodes has “earned” a spot atop the WWE because where he left off in the promotion versus where he is now is, in fact, so radically different. Rhodes went from playing one of the worst-conceived characters this century, sporting star makeup, a full-body suit, and a horrible vocal delivery to boot, to arguably the biggest babyface in all of WWE, one that fans actually want to root for and celebrate as their champion, no less. Blowing that so he can “earn it” might just be why WWE hasn't created any true cross-over stars since John Cena stopped being a full-timer last decade.