More AEW Releases Possibly Coming in 2022

Unlike WWE, All Elite Wrestling has gone through the COVID-19 pandemic while only releasing a small handful of wrestlers from their full-time contracts. But that seems to be changing soon. Lio Rush announced over the weekend that his contract is up on Feb. 14 and has every intention to become a free agent (he's since been booked for the next Terminus event). PWInsider's Mike Johnson then reported on Saturday that Brian Cage, Joey Janela and Marko Stunt all have their deals coming up in the coming months, then noted it's entirely possible that AEW could re-sign them before that happens. Peter Avalon's name was also brought up, though Leva Bates recently disputed that by saying he was still with the company while taking on independent bookings. 

Stunt, who returned to Twitter earlier this month by claiming he had auditioned to be on The Voice, still hasn't wrestled since he suffered a concussion back in October. Cage, who has been vocal on social media about not being used, hasn't been on AEW TV since the Oct. 6 episode of AEW Rampage. Janela has been the busiest of the three, continuing to split his time between AEW and and independent promotions like GCW, but hasn't been on anything besides AEW Dark since last May. Stay tuned for more updates on possible AEW releases as they become available.

In an interview with ComicBook before the start of the year, AEW president Tony Khan discussed looking forward to running weekly AEW programming with its roster at full strength. The only big name on the roster that is currently out of action is Kenny Omega. 

"Hopefully we'll be able to do the whole year touring, and spend 52 weeks touring across different, great markets," Khan said. "This year, the first half of the year, we were very fortunate that we were able to do the shows in Daily's Place, but it wasn't until the second half of the year, where we got back on the road and saw so many more great fans across the country. So, we'll always keep Daily's Place in the mix. We're there this week, and we'll be back again soon. But we'll be a lot of great places around the country in between. And I think it'll be great to bring AEW back to the west coast this year with Double or Nothing. And some of the TV around that. And I look forward to hitting more markets.

"And also, this will be the first year we've had this full roster in place. A lot of people came to AEW at the end of 2021," he added. "Huge stars, like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Ruby Soho, Adam Cole and now Kyle O'Reilly. All of them and more will have a chance to wrestle a full year in AEW, and I think that's going to be very special."

h/t PWInsider

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