Lance Archer Explains Why He Picked AEW Over NJPW

Lance Archer is scheduled to challenge for Jon Moxley's AEW World Heavyweight title on the October 14 episode of Dynamite. The match takes place little more than seven months after Archer opted to make the move to AEW from New Japan.

Speaking with Nick Hausman of Wrestling Inc, Archer discussed his decision to make that jump earlier in 2020, and why he chose to take on on a new home.

"I think it's one of those things, like I've always looked at life as steps in challenges, and I saw this as a next step and a new challenge," Archer said. "And AEW, even from the very beginning when the Bucks and Cody and Omega and those guys put together the first All In event and everything, I was in huge support of it just because I knew what it could do for the business professional wrestling. And then Tony Khan comes along and helps them start AEW as a whole, as a company. We're on TNT.

"When the opportunity to sign with AEW came, it came, like, out of nowhere. And there was an opportunity either to stay with New Japan or to go with AEW, and again, I saw it as a new step, a new opportunity, a new challenge and an opportunity to be back home on a consistent basis. I love Japan. I loved going out there and I love the fan base, and I loved everything that I was doing out there, but the opportunity to come home and to be on U.S. television and see my friends and family, the idea was to be able to tour the U.S. and be a part of that.

"All those things together, just, it was too good not to take. It was one of those opportunities that, again, it came out of nowhere."