The deadly coronavirus pandemic has hit the sports world hard but WWE has continued to function in the tough times and entertain their worldwide fans, at a time when no live sports event is broadcasted. However, the pandemic didn’t spare the top pro wrestling promoters as they had to release some of their top superstars, including Rusev, Kurt Angle, Erick Rowan, Carl Anderson, Luke Gallows and others just to cut on their budget. Its worth mentioning that WWE earned a huge amount of money from ticket sales but with the tapings taking place behind closed doors, this option is null and void. WWE is now heavily relying on TV broadcasting to generate the money.
WWE will continue to function in Florida and will continue shooting RAW, SmackDown and NXT behind closed doors after Governor Ron DeSantis deemed the company as an essential business. However, with less generation of debts, they were forced to leave out some of the wrestlers.
Two released wrestlers could be joining AEW
While many wrestlers lost their job in the tough times, the OC member Luke Gallows and Carl Anderson may be heading to join Tony Khan’s All Elite Wrestling(AEW) in the near future. WWE certainly had no competition from the other wrestling promoters but with the emergence of AEW, the Vince McMahon promotion had faced a tough challenge.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter noted that Gallows and Anderson will have a good chance of heading to AEW and joining forces with former WWE stars like Matt Hardy, Luke Harper, Dean Ambrose, Chris Jericho and others.
“In looking at the list, Anderson & Gallows would certainly have a shot at going to AEW, but with the Revival just being cut, it wouldn’t make sense to bring both teams in at the same time. Anderson & Gallows would likely be welcomed back to New Japan as well,” Wrestling Observer Newsletter mentioned.
The Good Brothers were mainly been associated with AJ Styles on the RAW brand but they didn’t have a successful outing as a team in WWE like they had in Japan as a member of Bullet Club. Wrestling Observer added that the two signed a five year deal with WWE at about $750,000 per year each and turned down lower numbers and had asked for their release to join AEW.
