Pro Wrestling Contract Season

[air_raid]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Alberto Del Rio AND Miro back on the payroll?

They're bringing back the League of Nations, brother. 

Spoiler

And Sheamus won last night.

The band is getting back together.

[LaGoosh]

New boom period incoming. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Have seen a couple of things today. Good news and bad, ill leave you to decide which is which. Chelsea Green has re-signed with WWE and reports that Shinsuke Nakamura has been released are not true. He is still surfing on the WWE dime. 

[NeverYield]

Good Chelsea Green is still with WWE and I personally am not bothered about Nakamura, I know he is popular but his gimmick and shtick just doesn't sit with me, never got on with him at all, so can't say I would miss him if he wasn't on TV. 

[RedTwoster]

I’d love to have seen Chelsea end up in AEW, but given that they didn’t sign her when she was available, I understand why she’s stayed put. But I could absolutely have seen her being a big star for them. Timeless Toni Storm - or a toned down version of her - might have been able to exist in WWE, but simply put, that gimmick would never have been treated as a top star in that company.

Chelsea is very good at being very funny, and she’s also a great wrestler. But being ‘funny’ in WWE pretty much dooms you to be kept at a certain level. She could be a main event level star for either company if given the chance, in my opinion.

[LaGoosh]

Willow Nightingale's contract is apparently up in a few months. That motherfucker Tony Khan better pull up entire fleets of trucks filled with cash to keep her. I'd be heartbroken to see her end up in WWE.

[DavidB6937]

I'd be absolutely shocked to see her go to WWE. While she hasn't been pushed nearly as much as many of us had hoped, Tony has definitely been using her better in recent times. She has so much more she can achieve in AEW and hopefully her recent booking is enough to convince her it's the right place for her.

[Devon Malcolm]

If she ends up in WWE then it's the ultimate proof that we didn't need that Tony Khan is a fucking idiot. She should be the biggest star in AEW.

[LaGoosh]

14 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I'd be absolutely shocked to see her go to WWE.

Me too, to be honest. But stranger things have definitely happened! I don't think they would make the best of her strengths at all. They'll make an offer just to spite AEW because that's who they are as a company but she's not their type. Could easily see her floundering either in NXT or the midcard.

[air_raid]

Now that Chelsea has re-signed I would love to see her compensated for missing Mania by getting to beat Io after the draft. She’d get super heat til SummerSlam then drop it to a babyface for a decent comeuppance.

A man can dream.

[RedTwoster]

11 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Me too, to be honest. But stranger things have definitely happened! I don't think they would make the best of her strengths at all. They'll make an offer just to spite AEW because that's who they are as a company but she's not their type. Could easily see her floundering either in NXT or the midcard.

I don’t think they have a ‘type’ anymore. Rhea Ripley likely wouldn’t be the star she is in Vince McMahon’s WWE, and across the company now there are a whole host of wrestlers doing well - female and male - who wouldn’t have been had the landscape not changed.

There was a point when I’d have been advocating for Willow to leave, back when AEW didn’t seem to care about its female wrestlers, but these days I’d not like to see that.

Having said that, I’m absolutely certain WWE would recognise Willow’s marketability, and I think she’d be an enormous star for them. The AEW women’s division is my favourite thing in wrestling, and losing May and Willow would be a real hammerblow. But I think Willow will do very well regardless of where she ends up.

[Supremo]

It’s frankly an indictment that Willow has even got to the last year of her contract without being made Women’s World Champion or having the company built around her.

I don’t think she will jump to WWE, but fucking hell, Tony. What are you waiting for? Offer her the Bret Hart twenty year contract, with Brock Lesnar money. Make her an EVP. Give her a percentage of the company. She’s the absolute best and I don’t think they’ve even scratched the surface on her potential.

Edited May 10, 2025 by Supremo

[RedTwoster]

1 minute ago, Supremo said:

It’s frankly an indictment that Willow has even got to the last year of her contract without being made Women’s World Champion or having the company built around her.

I totally agree, although it’s created a situation in which an eventual world title win will feel like an enormous, special moment - genuinely meaningful in a way I’m not sure either AEW or WWE has managed to achieve with a female wrestler just yet. I don’t think for a second that this has been a deliberate strategy, but I’m all for a delay in winning the big one, providing the intention is there to eventually make that happen.

You could have Toni Storm drop the belt to Mercedes, give her a dominant run on top before finally having Willow win the belt. From there, you have people like Megan Bayne waiting in the wings - it’s easy to chart out a very exciting future for AEW’s women’s world title.

[Kamran]

14 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Willow Nightingale's contract is apparently up in a few months. That motherfucker Tony Khan better pull up entire fleets of trucks filled with cash to keep her. I'd be heartbroken to see her end up in WWE.

I thought TK usually pulls talent if they're near the end of their contract and haven't resigned. He seems to be happy to leave them sitting at home until it expires rather than use them at all.

I agree with everyone, it would be sad to see her go, there is still so much they can do with her that I'm hoping she'll stay too. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

If AEW don't re-sign Willow and she ends up in WWE then the "Tony Fumbled" chant would be justified. She is a star that hasn't had the shine she should have had. I'd like to think it's that mythical beast "Long Term Booking' but I'm not convinced. I hope she stays in AEW but it's a coin flip I think.