Waves of WWE releases, AEW contract expirations coming, ROH releasing everyone, three big developments that have shaken up the entire wrestling business in 2021 and 2022.  What’s going to be left is a brave new world where comings and goings in every corner of the world are going to have an entirely different structure.  Which has us asking a big question:

How’s it all gonna work?

THE MAJORS

With WWE, it looks like the strategy is:

1. Keep the veterans they want
2. Let go of the ones they don’t
3. Sign cheap recruits/indie wrestlers

While there were some head scratchers (Braun Strowman, Aleister Black, Hit Row) for the most part the wrestlers that WWE released were people who had not been on TV in a while for various reasons and weren’t really needed much.  That sounds cold but remember that just two years ago they had 0ver 300 wrestlers under contract which was a number they never needed.  Meanwhile Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, and Sami Zayn have all re-signed recently and they continue to bring people in for NXT tryouts, most notably former ROH women’s champion Rok C.  There’s enough evidence and practice here to see what they’re doing here.  Things may change of course, but that’s how it looks right now.

AEW on the other hand is another story.  It’s been reported that over the next 30 to 60 days that a lot of the original signees are not going to be re-signed when their contracts expire, and more recent signee Lio Rush is also not coming back when his deal is up.  Tony Khan has mentioned a ‘dream signing to come’, and over the last year has brought in veterans like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, and Jay Lethal.  The big question is how are they going to handle the crop of WWE releases that are about to be available?  I’m talking about Keith Lee, Mia Yim, Tegan Nox, Ember Moon, Killer Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux, and in a few months Toni Storm.

All of those names would be good additions, and the ladies would do wonders for the much maligned women’s division, but is there enough space to fit them all in?  They still only have three hours of TV time, and are already deploying Cole, Lethal and most of the women’s division to work their YouTube shows and are having trouble finding consistent TV time for everyone on the roster as it is.  With virtually two women’s matches on TV per week and faced with the choice of signing and putting all those ladies on TV or sticking with the ones they’ve been using there’s a real question of quality vs loyalty, and the answer is going to leave somebody mad.

That is THE big question for AEW going forward.  Over the past year they’ve added several people who are flat out better than lots of their original roster members, and have bumped the latter down to the YouTube shows and their likely non renewals this year.  Bringing in more in 2022 is going to compound that situation and put a further squeeze on the limited time they have.  Which means that you should not be surprised if they don’t sign as many people as there are available.  The TV time is not there even with a purge of current roster members when their contracts expire.  In a nutshell roster management may be the number one issue of 2022 for AEW.

THE REST

Ring of Honor has announced Supercard of Honor for WrestleMania weekend as it’s official return date.  Now there’s the question of how the roster will be filled when that happens.  I imagine that everyone who was there for Final Battle will not be back; some will have moved on already and others are going to want better terms than the restarted ROH will be offering. Which begs the question of how to replace those people and what kind of contracts will be offered.  If they’re going to a more pay per performance structure as rumored then that will allow for more players but with less frequency.

Impact doesn’t look to be changing anything.  They sign a few castoffs, some for longer deals than others, and keep it moving.  Not a whole lot to speculate there.

Then there’s the indies.  The WWE releases from 2021 already flooded the market.  Now there’s another wave coming from the people ROH released and whoever will not be re-signed from AEW.  Unlike the companies they don’t have to worry about doling out TV time so having a bigger talent pool to work with is actually a good thing. The bad thing is that for the wrestlers there will be a lot more competition to get booked everywhere.

There is one conclusion to reach from all of this pending activity, and it is a major bummer.

This new situation is going to be decidedly pro management and anti-labor.  The WWE veterans who stay on for the duration of their careers will be fine, as will the AEW veterans who are signed full time.  But new WWE signees will mostly be of the young and cheap variety.  Meanwhile it’s hard to imagine AEW spending on all those released WWE wrestlers like they did last year, especially with some ROH castoffs on the market for less.  And the indie market is going to be even more saturated than it is now.  This all eventually adds up to lower pay for anyone who can’t land or keep a good deal from WWE or AEW.  And some people are going to be shut out of the business entirely from the domino effect.

WWE, by going on a multiyear signing binge from 2014 through 2019 and not releasing many people from 2016 until 2020, created a labor friendly environment, a demand bubble of sorts by taking so many high level talents off the board, throughout the business but that’s over now.   For the foreseeable future that ship has sailed and their new stance is going to fundamentally alter the way the rest of the industry works now.  Don’t be the least bit surprised AEW and ROH started planning whatever their new roster management strategy is going to be once those releases started coming last year, and if they both don’t sign everyone we think they will.  The game has changed now.