Shane Taylor Comments On Making His AEW Debut

One of the more celebrated names of latter-day Ring of Honor is set to return to the company, as Shane Taylor - alongside JD Griffey - looks to settle a score with Keith Lee at Final Battle 2022.

Taylor threw down a tag challenge to his former Pretty Boy Killers partner on the December 2 edition of AEW: Rampage, with Serve Strickland offering his services to tag with Lee once more against Taylor and Griffey. Ahead of Final Battle, Taylor was a guest on Knockouts and 3 Counts, and spoke of his AEW debut appearance, saying:

"This is the thing about wrestling. You can’t really blame them [AEW not featuring Taylor until now]. They’re going with the best options that they feel they have available at the time when you have a situation like when ROH closed down, there was a bunch of releases from WWE as well. It’s this surge of talent that you didn’t expect to have fall into your lap, and you sift through however you can. You go with the best options that you feel as though you have available, as with any group, any company, any sport. You have a whole bunch of free agents that come in, you’re gonna go with the most notable first, and then work your way through the whole group. So it was a matter of timing, it was a matter of opportunity. It just so happens that it’s lining up right now. To sit here and think about what could have been, what should have been, makes nobody any difference. It doesn’t do anybody any good. It doesn’t make anybody any money," Taylor said.

As for Final Battle, the former ROH TV Champion said it would be his ‘Jay Z moment’ quoting HOV’s Public Service Announcement:

"My job now is now that I have this, now that we’re in this tag team match, myself and JD Griffey against Swerve in Our Glory at Final Battle, my job now is to go out and do what everybody who’s been a fan of me for years knows that I can do, and to now show whoever doesn’t know who I am, like we said before, this is my Jay-Z moment. ‘Allow me to reintroduce myself’. Let me show you why I am Shane T, the baddest champion you’ve ever seen, the baddest of all time, why I am every bit the guy that I say I am," Taylor said.

Taylor and Lee teamed together from 2014 until 2017, with Lee leaving the independent scene for WWE NXT in 2018. 

“Now for me, it’s like that team that traded you, you get to play them again, and you didn’t think that you were gonna get that chance,” continued Taylor. “So now we’re here. Now we’re at a point to where we can get the matchup that people have been talking about for years, that nobody thought was actually gonna happen, and now we get to deliver that live on pay-per-view. So I’m incredibly excited. I’m incredibly motivated. I am looking forward to not only stepping in the ring with Keith, but stepping in there with a good friend of mine in JD Griffey and stepping in there for the first time with Swerve Strickland. For whatever reason, we’ve never competed against each other, so now we get to do that. There’s so many emotions in this match, there’s so much to draw from, there’s so many great stories to tell, and I’m excited, man. It’s an opportunity to open a lot of eyes and close any mouth that has anything to say.”

H/T: Fightful