Below is commentary related to recent news items within WWE. It contains both factual news, online rumors as well as opinion. If you have any comments, corrections or tips, please email us at [email protected]

WWE / Jerry Lawler

Long-time WWE commentator Jerry “The King” Lawler was recently interviewed by PWInsider.com and the news outlet then released a story reporting that WWE had quietly declined to renew Lawler’s contract with the company. WWE then reached out and clarified that while Lawler’s broadcasting contract was not extended, he is in fact still under a Legends Deal. Lawler’s contract has been up for expiration every January since at least 2015 and he signed a four year extension at that time and then a couple shorter ones. Under the Legends deal, he could still be brought back on TV for one-off type appearances but his days of commentating are surely over.

In late 2019, Lawler – while still under contract to WWE – had some “feelers” sent out through a third party to see if he would ever be interested in leaving the promotion and joining AEW. Lawler at the time declined, saying Vince McMahon had guaranteed him a job for life but that he would consider for something like a million dollars per year. Because Lawler was still under contract, that never went anywhere. It’s not hard to figure out who the middle man in these talks were; he tried awfully hard to get Lawler to jump ship! I’ll leave it at that. :). [ Disclaimer: I do not in any way believe Lawler is headed to AEW; this was only meant as a footnote.]

Drew Gulak Gone From WWE

After initially seeing his name all over the news following sexual misconduct accusations by Ronda Rousey, Drew Gulak’s time in WWE is either coming to an end or has already ended. Fightfulselect.com and pwinsiderelite.com both initially reported that Gulak was one of multiple talent released as part of a roster trim, but WWE CCO Paul Levesque clarified after Backlash that Gulak wasn’t released; rather his deal was set to expire and WWE chose not to renew it. The difference here is that if it’s the latter, there won’t be a non-compete clause attached, but if he was released, there would be.

Gulak’s reptuation took a hit this week when a report from fightfulselect.com painted a picture of someone who was a massive bully within NXT, specifically noting that he would be booked to wrestle against talent who were returning from injury and he would purposely try to re-injure them. I reached out to a source in NXT about Gulak prior to this story breaking and was told that his release had nothing to do with Rousey’s accusation but rather he lost some political power when people close to him departed the company and that he was “universally disliked” within the company. So based on what I was told and what Fightful reported, I believe that he was indeed a jerk.

Other News

• After months of speculation, Drew McIntyre signed a new multi-year contract with WWE that is reportedly going to pay him like a top-five talent in the company. While online speculation went back and forth on whether McIntyre would stay in WWE or leave for AEW, it was pretty obvious that he was staying (at least to me). Apart from featuring McIntyre as one of the top stars in the company and including him prominently in their Clash at the Castle promotional material, WWE has clearly been pushing a future storyline with him and CM Punk – that is not something they would do if there was any doubt McIntyre would be leaving as Punk’s return from injury would have been after McIntyre’s contract expired.
• Kevin Owens has less than a year left on his contract and his status is going to be up for question until he signs a new deal or leaves for AEW.  Owens has close friends in both promotions but has also made it be known that he would like a backstage position (within WWE) once his wrestling career wraps up. If I had to guess right now, I’m saying Owens stays with WWE.
• WWE announced Las Vegas as the destination for next year’s WrestleMania 41, which comes as somewhat of a surprise as Minneapolis had been the front-runner for the better part of the last year and even publicly stated that they expected to make an announcement soon. However, when WWE merged with Endeavor, everything changed as the new company had close ties with the city of Vegas and had their own vision of what they wanted for WrestleMania.  Minnesota still has a chance at a future WrestleMania but nothing is a lock for them. With Vince McMahon gone from WWE, choices on where to hold premium live events like WrestleMania will ultimately come down to money – specifically which jurisdictions will pony up the most cash to bring these events to their city. This is just one major change in ideology and another was pushed recently – the WWE Hall of Fame – which we were constantly reminded was the first under the leadership of Levesque. Hopefully that means we see Demolition in the Hall of Fame soon!

That’s all for now, thanks for reading and if you have any feedback, email me at [email protected]