There was a whole lot of reality-based television shows centered around skilled wrestling, and AEW star Anthony Bowens is a fan of lots of these shows. Considered one of his personal favorites was “WWE Tough Enough” which originally aired back in 2001, where young hopefuls would tryout in an try to develop into a WWE Superstar.
Bowens tweeted back in May 2026 that he thinks AEW should do their very own version of the show, even going so far as to provide it a reputation, “Becoming The Elite.” Bowens was asked about his idea on a recent episode of the “Battleground” podcast and whether there was any updates on the show potentially becoming a reality.
“I prefer to manifest things and just throw it on the market like ‘possibly it could develop into a thing,'” Bowens said. “Warner Brothers Discovery is all the time on the lookout for more content with reference to us and crossover opportunities. Tough Enough was one in every of my favorite–not to advertise that, but it surely was one in every of my favorite things once I was a child. Even still to this present day truthfully, I’ll return and watch it. Prefer it was cool, it’s my childhood, it was like a primary glimpse of what wrestling was behind the scenes for me. So I believed why not do something here with it? Except make it more AEW and make it fun.”
Bowens went on to say that he thinks AEW has probably the most elite roster on the earth and he looks like it will be interesting to see if people have what it takes to be on the AEW roster, especially given the people the contestants would find yourself being trained by if it were to occur.
Please credit “Battleground” when using quotes from this text, and provides a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.