The dream of going from a developmental talent to a main roster call-up is what every Superstar in the making strives for in their eventual WWE career. And for former pro wrestler David Otunga, his came inevitably fast – less than two years after signing with the company. In an interview on “Developmentally Speaking,” the former and original Nexus member describes the adrenaline rush he felt after getting the call that he was going to be featured on the main roster.

“My call-up was so fast. I was just trying to get a handle on wrestling,” the former two-time WWE Tag Team Champion recalled. “I wasn’t even really on FCW TV that much. I’d just gotten on there. I think I may have had one match on there before they called me up to ‘WWE NXT.’ I’m not sure. One or two…I was like, ‘Wait, what? I wasn’t ready for this yet. But awesome.'”

Of course, mentally, Otunga did not feel he was ready, as he mentioned later on in his interview that he still was being led through matches, and the pressure to be confident in front of a live audience and millions watching from home, despite not having enough maneuvers in his arsenal, was extremely intimidating. His last televised match was as a participant in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 30 in 2014. Luckily for him, surviving the fear of a potential firing after the formation of Nexus, the former lawyer turned wrestler got to fulfill his in-ring dreams up until his release in 2020.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Developmentally Speaking with Bryan Asbury,” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Tony Khan was among those bidding for WWE during its sale process in 2023, according to court filings in the ongoing shareholder lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court. 

As first reported by POST Wrestling, a Khan-backed company, Base 10, placed a bid alongside Formula One parent company Liberty Media and private equity firm KKR. Endeavor ultimately won the bidding process, thus spurring the formation of TKO, and this lawsuit stemmed from a belief that Vince McMahon had preempted the sale to secure his place with the company post-merger. 

The complaint was recently unredacted, including responses from the defendants to each paragraph of the complaint. And it’s those responses that reveal the identities of the bidders, pertinent to the case as a disclosure of the key suitors aside from Endeavor. 

“Base 10 is the owner of All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion that plainly would enjoy significant synergies with WWE,” the filing reads. 

POST noted in its report that Base 10 is not legally filed as the owners of AEW, with legal filings unrelated to this lawsuit indicating AEW’s parent as Beatnik Investments; Base 10 and AEW are owned by the Khan family, outside of the minority stake held by Warner Bros. Discovery in the latter.

Base 10 was incorporated in Florida in 2014, listing Khan as its sole officer and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ stadium as the company address. 

Of the four offers known to have been made, Base 10 reportedly represents the smallest by a margin. POST’s estimates saw Base 10 offering a stock deal worth $6.9 billion, while KKR offered somewhere between $8 to $8.7 billion, Liberty Media between $8.5 to $8.9 billion, and Endeavor won the bidding war with an offer of $8.5 billion. 

Plaintiffs in the shareholder lawsuit allege that the competing offers were not allowed to fully develop, preventing a truly competitive process which could have seen higher bidding. The defendants deny that claim.

The story between Kit Wilson and Jelly Roll is set to continue this week, with the former NXT Tag Team Champion slated to call out the Grammy Award winner on tomorrow’s episode of “WWE SmackDown.” The possible additional involvement from Royce Keys, however, has seemingly been shelved.

According to journalist Dave Meltzer, despite Keys’ name reportedly being amongst previous backstage discussions about a potential WrestleMania 42 tag bout involving Jelly, Keys (formerly known as AEW’s Powerhouse Hobbs) is not currently factored into it.

“I kind of wonder where they’re going with Jelly Roll, if they’re going to turn that into [something],” Meltzer said on “Wrestling Observer Radio.” “It just feels to me they’re going to build some gimmick match with him and Kit Wilson and maybe a tag [match] with Miz because The Miz has been involved in the storyline. They could do that. I had asked about the story because there was a story about Royce Keys, and I was told that it’s not Royce Keys, for whatever that’s worth. I wasn’t actually told that there is a match [involving Jelly Roll], but when you look at it, it certainly seems like they’re building it.”

Following his exit from AEW in mid-January, Keys made his WWE debut as a surprise entrant in the 2026 Men’s Royal Rumble. Since then, he’s appeared as a guest on Stephanie McMahon’s “What’s Your Story” podcast. In the ring, he has competed in a series of dark matches against talent from the “SmackDown” brand, with no follow-up television outings to his new name yet.

As for Jelly Roll, his potential tag team partner for WrestleMania 42, should he have one, is now unclear. Last week, Jelly crossed paths with Kit Wilson and The Miz on WWE’s blue brand, resulting in “The A-Lister” getting punched in the face.