The wrestling world is currently buzzing about what the future holds for a number of former WWE stars, but Matthew Rehwoldt, formerly known as Aiden English, wants fans to be realistic about the nature of the business.
Rehwoldt recently appeared on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast and emphasized that while it’s easy to connect wrestlers to companies on paper, it’s not actually that easy. He noted the fact that each company has a certain budget and a limited amount of screen time, so the promotions can’t simply sign every notable who gets released by WWE.
“Look, between my class of people who got released and especially this year, we’ve seen swaths of people get released and everything like that,” said Rehwoldt. “One thing I want people to keep in mind — AEW, IMPACT, Ring of Honor, all this stuff, these companies do not have unlimited budgets, they do not have unlimited TV time, and they have rosters already.
“So a lot of people are like, ‘Why don’t you go here, go here, go here?’ I’m like, unless I am Brain Strowman or maybe these tip top of the tier guys that you kind of have to get, it’s not as simple as walking through the door. And trust me, I’ve had talks with almost everybody, and there are some things happening that I cannot speak to yet.”
Rehwoldt just made his debut for IMPACT Wrestling at its Homecoming event, but he knows that a number of free agents will be entering the market in just a few weeks. He asked fans to remain patient and set realistic expectations about the liklihood that some of these wrestlers won’t get signed and put on television right away.
“I say that, not only for me, but for a lot of these people coming kind of behind me,” said Rehwoldt. “And there’s 20, 30, 40 people kinda coming onto the independent scene and the free agent scene. If not everybody shows up on TV like September 1 or whatever the date is after all their 90-days and everything like that, please be patient, please don’t trash all these companies for not hiring 50 people coming off of WWE contracts and stuff like that.”
