Alan Angels Reveals Why He Is Leaving AEW

Reports surfaced this week suggesting Alan Angels’ AEW contract had expired, and now it has not only been confirmed, but Angels himself is set to depart the company.

Angels revealed the news to Fightful Select, stating his deal is up on June 30:

"My contract, I was told about a month and a half ago, that they are not going to re-sign me,” said Angels. “They did offer me a per-appearance, which I decided not to take, just solely based off what I thought was best for me. I feel there is more room to grow outside of AEW, right now, at this point in my career. It's nothing against AEW or Tony Khan or any of the higher-ups in the business. It's a personal thing. I feel, me going on the Indies and showing people what I can really do and showing people that I am a good f****** wrestler, I feel that will raise my stock - not saying it's impossible to do that in AEW, but I guess the perception, how fans perceive Alan Angels, is, I'm the bottom guy in Dark Order and I feel I can change that outside of AEW. It's possible in AEW, but I feel it would take longer.

“On top of that, I never got to have a great Indie career. I was on the Indies for three years, got lucky, and got scooped up. As a wrestling fan, being an Indie wrestler and doing cool ass Indie shows, that's a thing I want to do. There are plenty of places to make money in pro wrestling right now. That's not to say that I won't be back in AEW, maybe I will, I don't know, but that's pretty much it. They offered me something, I felt it was better for me not to. That's all it was.”

Angels got tongues wagging with a Tweet suggesting he was on his way out of the company, before turning his profile picture black and adding a booking email address to his profile:

"I put out the tweet, I didn't really mean to put it out as a teaser or whatever. I didn't expect everybody to freak out about it. It was literally just a normal tweet, at first. Then I saw some people speculating some stuff and I was like, 'You know what, my contract is up in a few days, I'm just going to run with it.' Then I turned my profile picture black, took the AEW out of my bio, and really just stirred the pot because I love watching people freak out on social media. People were hitting me up, asking if I was okay. Yeah, I'm fine, I just like watching people freak out on the internet,” said Angels.

With Angels departing AEW, The Dark Order’s presence in the company shrinks even more, after founding member Stu Grayson left earlier in 2022. Angels reiterated that although he is out of AEW he is still Dark Order, and is open to tangling with Grayson on the Indies:

"I'm open to whatever,” Angels continued. “If anything, I'd like to have a match with him. Whether that be at C4 or wherever else he wants to go. That would be my main thing. If somebody wants to book us for a tag, I'm open to it. I'm still wearing the Dark Order hat, it's not like I'm kicked out of the group or whatever. I have a New Japan show, it's already taped, with Uno as a tag. Stu leaving was a big thing for all of us and maybe was part of all of it. I'm open to do whatever with Stu."