2022 WRESTLERS LEAVING COMPANIES THREAD (Releases, FAs, etc...)

[colonial]

Jerry Soto Trata on Instagram: “Tomó 10 años de entrenamiento a fuerza de trabajo constante, tomó unos años de ausencia por circunstancias ajenas que afectaron, y siguen…”

Looks like Jerry Soto, who was among those let go by the WWE in the initial pandemic purges, has been brought back to replace Carlos Cabrera for the Spanish announce team.

 

 

[EVA]

On 2/15/2022 at 1:28 PM, Eivion said:

I've never understood this. While he had no issues with being critical of shit he thought was dumb on WWE's part he also generally tried to be respectful to them the past few years. Its more TK and Omega who were just straight up anti-WWE.

Not to belabor the point, but since Omega has spoken about this very thing publicly since then:

 

[Just Dave]

On 2/18/2022 at 10:28 AM, peterien said:

It’s funny to me how all of a sudden in certain areas in the internet (not here) that all of a sudden AEW has “budgeting problems”, “won’t get a big renewal on their tv deal” and that “Owens and Sami saw what they had to offer and stuck with WWE and have major mania plans now”. 

I’ve said before that I can’t blame Cody for looking out for himself money wise but all of this is going to be laughable in August when he’s wrestling Steve-O at summerslam. 

It's a fairly damning commentary on the world we live in where "don't want to pay a mid-carder exorbitantly" is interpreted as "budget issues." TK is bringing in Bud Mathews, Shane Strickland, and Jeff Hardy over the next few weeks. I fully embrace his philosophy of "pay guys for what you think they can do, not for what they have done." 

 

He was right not to get bogged down with huge deals to Owens and Zayn, too. I like both guys, but would they help you at this point more than Punk, Danielson, Cole and Lee? 

FWIW, a Cody extension probably does put you in money trouble. You can snap up 6-8 talents for what Cody apparently wanted. 

[Infinit]

Maybe Cody left because he thinks Vince would embrace "the war"?

[Curt McGirt]

It would have been amusing to see Owen's and Zayn join only to get paired up yet again, either with or against each other.

[Big Z]

I'm a big fan of Cody and recognize his importance in establishing AEW as a true national company, and his first year to 18 months in AEW was mostly very good. That said, asking to be paid $3 million a year after his last year in the company and the depth at the top of the AEW card is ludicrous, and I don't blame TK for balking at that. There are a handful of active/semi-active (Cena) guys that I would pay that, and they are all basically entrenched with AEW or WWE already (and outside of those prganizations, maybe Okada or our favorite Knife Pervert on a full-time contractual basis).

[Curt McGirt]

Whoever got Trent? to say Knife Pervert on here needs to raise their hand. It's either that or he lurks on the board. 

[Ace]

Before anybody thinks Cody will be Miz's partner against The Mysterios, the plan is for it to be Logan Paul.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Ace

[grilledcheese]

7 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Whoever got Trent? to say Knife Pervert on here needs to raise their hand. It's either that or he lurks on the board. 

Is it really some big DVDVR secret? There is a "Knife Pervert" shirt on Switchblade's PW Tees site.

[Curt McGirt]

Huh, didn't know that. Where did it start then? 

[grilledcheese]

I think Chuck Taylor used it on Twitter. Like when they would tweet about the shows they weren't on, I think?

Jay embraced it to the point that he put it on a t-shirt. 

[Kang]

I am Jay White.

Spoiler

Not really.

 

[Infinit]

12 minutes ago, grilledcheese said:

I think Chuck Taylor used it on Twitter. Like when they would tweet about the shows they weren't on, I think?

Jay embraced it to the point that he put it on a t-shirt. 

It was definitely Chuck.

[Ace]

From when he'd tweet Wrestle Kingdom, IIRC.

 

[AxB]

 

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Whoever got Trent? to say Knife Pervert on here needs to raise their hand. It's either that or he lurks on the board. 

Chuck came up with Knife Pervert while live tweeting a Wrestle Kingdom.

EDIT: Nevermind! Others already answered this.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Craig H

[A_K]

Omega interview is pretty interesting and subtly explicit. Omega/Bucks vision for future differed from Cody's: "I understand there might be some heartbreak if you were promised carte blanche and it doesn't come to fruition". What, the sort of self-aggrandizement that saw precious minutes on a national Network dedicated to a baby gender reveal (that was so bizarre) may not be seen as creatively sustainable? Who knew. While he's been involved in somewhat-carny shit variously, Omega personally seems like one of the most grounded, least-carny guys out there.

[Ziggy]

On 2/18/2022 at 10:43 AM, Hagan said:

All the discourse with money is awful (again, not here). People think that signing Danhausen for presumably what is one of the lower-end contracts is the reason you can't afford a Cody seven-figure contract. Or that, possibly, bringing in Buddy Matthews is the same financial outlay as what Owens was asking. 

Owens and Zayn are great but are you going to get into a massive seven-figure bidding war for them, especially after signing Bryan and Punk? 

Also, as always with WWE contracts, what they offer you and what you get are wildly different things. Gallows and Anderson were re-signed to major deals to keep them away from AEW and were then cut like a year later. 

 

Gallows and Anderson wasn't featured prominently at all after the first few months of coming in and being aligned with AJ Styles when he was hot. Regardless of what i think of Gallows and Anderson as a team, you can tell the WWE wasn't high on them anyway so it's not surprising they got cut. WWE have had a ton of great teams come together in their run in WWE and those guys weren't good at all compared to most teams. 

Owens and Zayn would definitely be better from a workrate standpoint but I believe Buddy Murphy has more upside long term if they want to be closer to an Americanized New Japan rather than a Sports Entertainment type company. Guys like Murphy, Andrade and Strickland were 3 of my favorite wrestlers in WWE pre pandemic Regardless of their place on the card. Although I agree even AEW having great matches isn't the sole element to get you over. I believe Strickland can get himself over with his personality especially if he can bring the personality he got to bring in his HitRow presentation. Andrade I believe can be the best in the world but I don't know if that alone would get him over. Same with Murphy, he became my favorite to watch from the NXT system developed into one of the best. We will see because even 3 years in AEW is still showing its identity as a promotion because they take their time developing angles and stories and Talent. That's definitely a positive and there's other subtle things AEW is different at than WWE and they seem to be taking their time to ReEducate the fans.

[John from Cincinnati]

2 hours ago, A_K said:

What, the sort of self-aggrandizement that saw precious minutes on a national Network dedicated to a baby gender reveal (that was so bizarre) may not be seen as creatively sustainable? 

They had a soon-to-be-announced reality show on a Turner network coming when this happened, and people are still whining about it? It makes perfect sense why this happened beyond "self-aggrandizement." It also wasted fewer of those "precious minutes" than shit that's existence makes far less sense. 

[A_K]

Just now, John from Cincinnati said:

They had a soon-to-be-announced reality show on a Turner network coming when this happened, and people are still whining about it? It makes perfect sense why this happened beyond "self-aggrandizement." It also wasted fewer of those "precious minutes" than shit that's existence makes far less sense. 

The only sense it makes is in relation to an overall utterly tone deaf creative malaise, and the eminently foreseeable conclusion of him  being bounced from the company who neglected to pick up his contractual option, which is the only reality we live in.

I also appreciate this is some sort of bizarre internet persona shtick you have for feigning adoration for the guy, so more fool me for engaging with it, but when in Rome.

[John from Cincinnati]

5 minutes ago, A_K said:

The only sense it makes is in relation to an overall utterly tone deaf creative malaise

Or it potentially tying in to another property on the network? 

I can't tell if you really don't get this or if you're pretending. 

[TheVileOne]

On 2/18/2022 at 7:28 AM, peterien said:

It’s funny to me how all of a sudden in certain areas in the internet (not here) that all of a sudden AEW has “budgeting problems”, “won’t get a big renewal on their tv deal” and that “Owens and Sami saw what they had to offer and stuck with WWE and have major mania plans now”. 

I’ve said before that I can’t blame Cody for looking out for himself money wise but all of this is going to be laughable in August when he’s wrestling Steve-O at summerslam. 

Most of that is based on information being reported by Observer/Dave Meltzer.

[ReiseReise]

5 hours ago, A_K said:

Omega interview is pretty interesting and subtly explicit. Omega/Bucks vision for future differed from Cody's: "I understand there might be some heartbreak if you were promised carte blanche and it doesn't come to fruition". What, the sort of self-aggrandizement that saw precious minutes on a national Network dedicated to a baby gender reveal (that was so bizarre) may not be seen as creatively sustainable? Who knew. While he's been involved in somewhat-carny shit variously, Omega personally seems like one of the most grounded, least-carny guys out there.

Not sure, if he was with WWE we would speculate about him being instructed to tow the company line. The excerpt has a weird feel to it. 

[BrianS81177]

I'm curious, can anyone say if Carlos Cabrera's skills as an announcer were starting to decline or was he still doing a capable job? Because if he was let go for the sole reason of finding a younger replacement wouldn't he have an age discrimination claim?

[zendragon]