Tony Khan: I Can't Renew All AEW Contracts Due To So Many Wrestlers Coming In

A criticism levelled at AEW is that the organisation is signing too many wrestlers without cutting anyone from their roster, with only a handful of performers in AEW history released from their contracts early.

Reports have circulated throughout the start of the year that some AEW contracts are set to expire in the coming months, and in conversation with TV Insider, AEW President Tony Khan has admitted he won’t be able to re-sign everyone due to the influx of new talent: 

“When we started a lot of people had contracts that were a couple of years long and a lot of them are coming up. I have really tried hard to be very considerate of the people on the roster, especially going through the pandemic. That encompassed a long period of time where we were still in our first year of television and going into our second. I kept a lot of people under contract even though I wasn’t necessarily using them on television because I wanted them to still have paying work, which was hard to come by for wrestling during the pandemic where there weren’t any independent shows. Really only two places were running and the other place was cutting people left and right. I did want to give some job security to people. Now with so many wrestlers coming in, I can’t renew all the contracts. I’ve had to make some tough choices based on ability, fan response, or both. I try to maintain the best roster I can for the company and fans.”