The Revival Officially Released From WWE

After months of speculation on the tag team’s future, former WWE Tag Team Champions The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson) have been released from WWE and are free to pursue other opportunities in the wrestling business. The team had been expected to leave WWE when their contracts were up and it looks like they got their wish. The team’s last television match was on the January 31st edition of SmackDown, and they last worked a WWE match at the March 1st house show in Syracuse, New York. The announcement was made early on Friday morning by WWE’s social media channels and WWE.com.

The statement from the company simply reads:

BREAKING: Effective today, Friday, April 10, 2020, WWE and The Revival have agreed on their immediate release from WWE. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

Dawson’s contract was reported to expire sometime in April, while Wilder’s contract was set to expire 10 weeks later (he had time added on due to an injury). It looks as though the team were able to work out an early release to leave together. WWE had recently stopped paying them due to them having already earned their downside guaranteed money in their contracts.

“Multiple sources within WWE have heard that The Revival either weren’t getting paid, or that it was “extremely scaled back” because they’ve already exceeded their downside guarantees,” Fightful’s report read.

WWE had tried for months to get the team to re-sign but to no avail. Wilder and Dawson were both reportedly offered yearly contracts in the neighborhood of $1 million and turned them down. Determined to leave the company, one would expect them to sign with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) almost immediately. They have been working an online feud with the Young Bucks for years and there’s certainly big money in the eventual match which will almost certainly happen now.

The Revival have also teased a match with New Japan’s David Finlay and Juice Robinson in the past, so a trip over to Japan doesn’t seem out of the question either. There will be lots of options on the table for one of the most talented teams in the wrestling industry now that they are free from WWE moving forward.

It seemed like the team’s last gasp at doing something interesting with WWE happened after they lost the SmackDown Tag Team Titles to Kofi Kingston and Big E at December’s TLC event. Wilder and Dawson almost immediately started trying to work an angle with Booker T to get a dream match against former multi-time WCW Tag Team Champions Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray).

“A fight is one thing, a match is something totally different. I think these guys look at me and my brother like we’re two jabronies that ain’t ready to fight,” Booker said during an episode of his podcast in January. “These guys talking about a match. Me and my brother ain’t off to wrestling nobody right now. But if they talking about a fight? I’m down. I ain’t got time to putting on my trunks and boots and trying to dress up like one of these guys on the roster. I’m a businessman. These guys (are) trying to make a name for themselves, and they trying to do that at the expense of Booker T and Stevie Ray. I ain’t no chump and I ain’t backing out of no fight anytime soon.

“Dawson, Wilder. You want us? You might want to rethink that because you could be about to ruin your careers. I would question myself if I was you two, as far as wanting to wake up a sleeping giant,” he continued. “Think about it.”

Where do you want to see The Revival end up? Who do you want to see them wrestle? Let us know in the comments section below, and give me a follow on Twitter @ryandroste for all things WWE.