Darby Allin says he had to pay $12,000 to get out of a contract with another company before he could sign with AEW.
The 29-year-old appeared on the DDP Snakepit podcast recently and spoke about what he did after finding out Cody Rhodes was interested in bringing him to AEW in 2019.
"At the time, I was signed with another little promotion, and then the moment I heard that Cody was interested, long story short I paid $12,000 to get out of my contract. I took a loan out and then I remember I used to hit Cody up every day, just blow his phone up," Allin said.
Allin had been with EVOLVE/World Wrestling Network from 2016 to 2019.
"I just heard there was this new company starting up and then this is before TV was even talked about. I was like this is crazy. All I heard when they were promoting it was the word 'creative freedom' and I was like, 'That's where I need to be.'"
Allin also revealed that he received interest from NXT at the time, but he knew he wanted to sign with AEW.
"At the time, I was kind of being groomed to go to NXT and I saw the writing on the wall. This was back when 205 Live was a thing if you remember 205 Live, and I was like, 'Hell f***ing no, I'm not going there to do that.'"
"It was a feeling I had that I had to go [to AEW], I was just so drawn to it," he continued.
Allin also spent some time on the podast talking about his history working with Sting in AEW. He noted that Sting was originally signed to do cinematic matches but Allin eventually convinced him to wrestle live.
"When he first got to AEW he originally signed on for just cinematic matches," Allin said. "So, he signed up for cinematic matches and then we were training at his house down in Texas because he had a ring down there. I just straight up said to him, 'Man, we don't need to do cinematic matches, let's do this live.' And then I kind of convinced him to think about it."
"There's nothing we have to hide here with your performance," Allin continued.
Later in the conversation, Allin revealed that he and Sting will be wrestling at AEW All Out. Their match will be announced on Wednesday's edition of Dynamite.
"We got All Out, me and Sting will be there, our match will be announced Wednesday. We will be at All Out," he said.
Sting and Allin appeared on Rampage on Friday and saved Miro from an attack by the House of Black.