Nick Aldis explains the process of trading Kevin Owens for Jey Uso.
Last night on Friday Night SmackDown, Nick Aldis was revealed as the new GM of SmackDown and after a casual burn on Dominik Mysterio, Aldis introduced who SmackDown had received in exchange for Jey Uso in a trade.
This would turn out to be Kevin Owens, who would march to the ring and hit a stunner on Dominik to a big pop.
In a SmackDown Exclusive, Aldis commented on being named the General Manager of WWE SmackDown and the process of negotiating for the trade of Kevin Owens.
“I’m feeling wonderful. Like I said out there, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to be the general manager of SmackDown, the number one brand in all of sports entertainment. Wow. It’s a testament to the many hats that I’ve worn in the industry outside of the ring. To be bestowed that trust by Triple H and the rest of the management team at WWE is a huge thrill,”
“My first order of business was to select and to negotiate for a trade in kind. Now, Jey Uso is a top-tier talent, so that kind of narrows the field as to who would be eligible. For me, as a GM, the most important responsibility I have is to the SmackDown audience. I knew that SmackDown fans would only tolerate a very small number of talent to be eligible to replace a talent of Jey Uso’s caliber. So when I got to thinking about it, there’s a lot of different moving parts, a lot of nuances. I won’t bore you with all those right now. But I felt like Kevin Owens met the criteria for a number of reasons, one obviously being that he is a very top-tier talent. But also, we’re in a new season, and I feel like Kevin is entering a new season of his career, meaning that he has just come off a incredible run with Sami as the tag team champions. So I feel like the time is right for him to look at singles completion again. With that in mind, I felt like all of those different parts were in the right place, so I made a call to Kevin. We discussed things. I talked to Adam, I talked to Triple H. We made some negotiations, and we got the deal done,”
Nick Aldis
While Aldis is now the GM of SmackDown, Triple H also announced that Pearce would now function as the GM of RAW.
We will have to wait and see how Aldis continues to do in the role as SmackDown GM.
H/T to Fightful for transcription
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