WWE releases aren’t a rarity anymore. The company has performed a sharp about-turn from its position two years ago. Back then, when AEW was brand new, WWE wanted to lock every star it had down on a big-money, long-term contract to prevent them from jumping ship and joining the competition. Now, they’ve taken the opposite view. Nick Khan has come into the company to work with Vince McMahon with an apparent mission to make the company as profitable as possible. Even when profits are at record levels, that still means terminating the contracts of some of those formerly bulletproof wrestlers.
The latest and most shocking of all the releases that have happened in the past twelve months is that of Bray Wyatt. The former leader of the Wyatt Family is a one-time WWE Champion and a two-time WWE Universal Champion and holds the rare distinction of a victory over John Cena at WrestleMania. At the age of 34, he’s arguably in the prime of his career. Based on photos that recently circulated on social media, he’s also in the shape of his life. The rumour mill says that after last being seen at this year’s WrestleMania, he’d only received his medical clearance to return to the ring two days before he was let go. Before that, he’d been working on a planned return in August. The news came as a shock to Wyatt, real name Windham Rotunda. Based on their social media posts, it came as an even bigger shock to the rest of the WWE roster. If Wyatt isn’t safe, neither is anybody else.
Many of the names that have been let go in the past twelve months don’t make any sense from a business standpoint, but Wyatt is a huge head-scratcher. He’s a main event level talent and is over with the fans. He moves huge amounts of merchandise. When he became WWE Universal Champion, the company sold replicas of his customised title belt for eye-watering prices. His masks sold well, too. Back when WWE was planning to release a range of online slots (a plan that’s since been cancelled), Wyatt was scheduled to appear prominently in one of them. He was one of very few current roster members to be given that footing, as almost all the rest of the online slots were dedicated to WWE legends of the past. Now, it seems that he might go to a company that knows a thing or two about online slots because they’ve released such a game in the past. We’re talking, of course, about All Elite Wrestling.
AEW sometimes gets criticised for picking up stars that WWE has let go of. That’s unfair. Wrestlers moving between companies was perfectly normal until twenty years ago when WWE put WCW out of business and became the only “big” game in town. During the past two years, WWE has signed more wrestlers from Impact than AEW has from WWE. People sneer at AEW picking up WWE talent because they see it as AEW hiring WWE’s cast-offs. That perception might soon change. Hiring Wyatt – whatever his new ring name turns out to be – would be the kind of move that’s capable of changing it. Regardless of how any wrestling fan feels about the way his characters are booked, nobody can deny Wyatt’s creative talent.
The original Bray Wyatt gimmick was largely Rotunda’s idea. It worked beautifully in NXT, but WWE – or, more specifically, Vince McMahon – didn’t know what to do with it on the main roster. After generating a lot of initial excitement, Wyatt was jobbed out to John Cena and the Undertaker. Before long, he was doing jobs for Finn Balor, Roman Reigns, and anyone else McMahon wanted to put over. Wyatt became the guy who cut great promos but lost every feud he was in. Undeterred, Rotunda went away for a while and returned with “The Field” as a new idea. Children’s TV presenter by day and indestructible demonic beast by night, the Field could have been the Undertaker for the modern age. Instead, WWE shot itself in the foot a second time.
The Fiend was a character that needed to be handled carefully. Resistance to pain and superhuman recovery powers were the whole point of the character. In short, he shouldn’t be booked to lose by pinfall. When WWE put him almost straight into the title picture with Seth Rollins, they left themselves almost nowhere to go. The Field had to win the title, and so he did. In the process, the perception of Rollins as a top guy was destroyed. Then, for reasons that made no sense then and make even less sense now, McMahon had Goldberg pin the Fiend clean for the title in Saudi Arabia. The character’s momentum never recovered. The mystique was shattered. Rotunda gave the company gold to work with twice, and both times WWE’s creative department dropped the ball.
It’s almost inevitable that AEW will make an offer to Wyatt, and it’s highly likely he’ll take it. His name will be added to an ongoing series of talent acquisitions that could spell danger for WWE. It’s the worst-kept secret in wrestling that CM Punk and Bryan Danielson (the former Daniel Bryan in WWE) have both signed AEW contracts and will debut in the next two months. There are even rumours that former Bullet Club member Adam Cole is about to sign on the dotted line, too. Cole’s WWE/NXT contract has expired because of a clerical oversight, and he’s reluctant to sign a new one. It looks like he’ll stick around to put Kyle O’Reilly over at the next Takeover and then move on. All his friends are in AEW. It would be a surprise if he didn’t end up there. Add Andrade and Malakai (Aleister) Black to that mix, the top of AEW’s card is every bit as star-studded and talented as WWE’s.
WWE’s roster looks thinner and less secure by the moment. If the company continues with its current rate of attrition, it will have to cancel next year’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view because it won’t have enough wrestlers to compete in it. The company’s financial health is good, but its longer-term prospects have to be questioned. There’s a major talent drain going on, and AEW is the chief beneficiary of it. Losing a creative mind like Rotunda’s won’t help with that, and nor will the potential loss of his devoted fanbase. If AEW Dynamite ratings surpass WWE Raw’s by the end of 2021, it may no longer count as a surprise.
Comments are closed.