WWE Booking: The Reason For Talents Leaving?

courtesy of wwe.com

Alberto Del Rio. Rey Mysterio. CM Punk. Those three superstars have had controversial exits from the WWE this past year.

Mysterio is still under contract with the WWE, however, the superstar is looking for a way out of his contract. WWE is taking advantage of Mysterio’s non-compete clause that restricts Mysterio from working for any other wrestling promotion.

Live Feed

Bam Smack Pow

Del Rio was recently fired by the WWE after an incident with a WWE staff member. Del Rio appeared to be in the right when it came to his incident with the WWE official, and after a backing by John Cena and Randy Orton, WWE offered to bring Del Rio back. Instead, Del Rio rejected a return to the WWE and began working with Mexican wrestling promotion, AAA. Even before Del Rio’s firing, Del Rio was looking to leave WWE as he was upset with the direction of his character.

In the case of CM Punk, little is known as to why Punk decided to walk out on the company the night after the Royal Rumble pay-per view in January. Growing speculation is that Punk was growing tired of the direction that WWE creative gave his character. Though, whispers have also indicated that Punk was not too fond of part-time wrestlers, such as Batista, coming back into the picture and taking the spotlight away from the grinders such as Daniel Bryan.

Now, Batista may be the next to be added to that list.

There are growing tensions between Batista and WWE officials. Like Punk, Batista was skeptical of the idea of returning as a face because he knew that the WWE fans were not going to buy it. Batista proved to be correct as WWE fans never got behind the The Animal’s return and that resulted in a wasted opportunity for both WWE and Batista.

Batista was written off WWE programming in June as a way to allow him to go on tours to promote his movie, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy”. With the movie having released and the promotion tours concluded, Batista was expected to return to WWE in order to set up a program for WWE Night of Champions in September. Instead, recent reports have Batista at odds with WWE and looking to focus more on his career as an actor.

With four notable wrestlers having issues with WWE and three of them because of creative direction, WWE may just have a problem on their hands.

Recently, the booking for WWE has been peculiar.

Simply, there is a lack of interest. The lack of interest and the slump that WWE creative is in could be a result of Daniel Bryan’s injury. Bryan’s story throughout the Wrestlemania season was brilliant. Though, the momentum from that story quickly faded after Wrestlemania as a series of tragic events kept Bryan from WWE programming. After a neck surgery and now a looming Tommy John surgery, Bryan is not expected to return until early 2015.

With Bryan out, that has forced WWE to accelerate Roman Reigns’ ascension. Roman Reigns certainly has the makeup of being the next top face within the WWE, the issue is that he still needs to develop as an individual talent. Reigns certainly is exciting to watch in the ring, though, his microphone skills are lacking.

Whether it is working feverishly to improve Reigns’ microphone skills or putting all their eggs in Brock Lesnar’s basket, WWE needs to find a resolution to their booking slump. If they don’t, then that will undoubtedly lead to upset talent and said talent may then take the CM Punk route and sever their ties with anything and everything WWE.