AEW Rumors: WWE don’t view Shawn Spears release as a major loss

Not only do WWE not view Shawn Spears’ move to AEW as a loss that affects them, but seeing his performance there might’ve inspired more future WWE releases.

WWE recently granted the releases of Luke Harper (who already has interest from AEW to get signed over there), Konnor and Viktor of The Ascension, and Sin Cara from their company.

Earlier this year, a couple of these Superstars (specifically Sin Cara and Luke Harper) publicly asked for their releases via Twitter, but both were originally declined. They weren’t the only ones, as Mike Kanellis did so back in October and Shawn Spears (fka Tye Dillinger) did so even earlier in February. Only, in Spears’ case, his release was actually granted.

Since exiting the company, Shawn Spears rechristened his image with WWE Hall of Famer Tully Blanchard as his manager as part of AEW. Most notably, he feuded with VP exec Cody Rhodes and the two made headlines (for the wrong reasons) thanks to an ill-advised chair shot.

After that, Spears lost to Cody at the All Out PPV. Since then, admittedly, Spears’ AEW career has been in limbo with no major accomplishments or storylines to speak of. At least as far as WWE is concerned.

During the latest episode of Sportskeeda’s official podcast, Dropkick DiSKussions, Tom Colohue admitted to speaking to sources within WWE. The overall company feeling is that they view Spears and what he’s done for AEW (or, perhaps, lack thereof) as a key example of what future stars released from WWE can accomplish if they go to AEW: absolutely nothing.

Colohue had the following to say during the podcast:

"There is also, and I believe the man in question will not thank me for this, but unfortunately this is what I’ve been told by sources in WWE, that they have looked at the example of Shawn Spears and considered that to be a release that didn’t affect them negatively in any way, including his entire run on AEW."

Colohue also adds that WWE “do not believe that it impacted them negatively, they don’t believe it hurt them, they don’t believe it strengthened AEW, and they are willing to put more people into that path.”

This suggests that WWE has plans to release more Superstars on the upcoming horizons. Even under the belief that some of these future releases could make their way to AEW, it seems that the general belief is that the next crop of wrestlers they let go will not positively affect AEW in a major way nor will it hurt WWE to let them go.

There’s no telling the next time WWE will release more of their Superstars or even who could be next on the chopping block, but we will try our best to provide future updates as they present themselves.