Lance Archer On Signing with AEW and Receiving a Full-Time NJPW Offer

Lance Archer has been cutting a ruthless path through AEW since making his debut, including his recent Texas deathmatch with Jon Moxley at Fyter Fest.

Talking during a recent episode of AEW Unrestricted, the Murderhawk Monster Lance Archer spoke about how he chose to sign with AEW over a contract offered by NJPW.

Lance Archer wrestled for nine years out in Japan but revealed he never had a full-time contract with the Japanese promotion.

“I did. New Japan, as far as Japanese wrestling is concerned, a lot of times. The old school way of doing business, especially with the foreigners, was just a tour-by-tour thing. That’s how I’d actually been with the company for nearly nine years,” Lance Archer explained.

It wasn’t until he was offered a contract by AEW that Archer was offered a full-time deal with NJPW. However, by that point, the options available to Lance Archer, were far broader than ever before.

“I don’t even think, to a degree, I would have received the offer from New Japan if AEW didn’t exist. They didn’t even know that AEW offered me the deal. I’m just saying that AEW was changing the wrestling world completely from how everybody was doing business.”

Wrestling a foreign country is never easy, even before the pandemic hit, different cultures and language barriers can be big obstacles to overcome. For Lance Archer, there was an allure to coming back to wrestle full time in the United States.

“So, the opportunity to come back home, to tour the United States, this is prior to anybody knowing what was going to happen in 2020, the new challenges of coming back to the U.S. and being in AEW, a company that was growing and changing the world professional wrestling, all these things were just too enticing and something that I actually wanted to take on. I wanted to bet on myself and be a part of AEW.”

Lance Archer has an affinity with the New Japan crowd. Thanks to AEW’s open relationship, it is likely he will wrestle in Japan in the future. Especially now that he is the IWGP United States champion. However, for the Murderhawk Monster, it would seem that there really is no place like home.