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Adam Cole Update On “Non-Negotiable” Request He Made To WWE

By TJR Staff • Published 3rd September 2021

Adam Cole is one of the biggest names in WWE NXT history and he’s also a free agent with the ability to sign with any pro wrestling company in the world.

Cole’s contract with WWE reportedly expired on August 27 (last Friday) and since then, nothing has come to light in terms of where he might sign. Cole’s deal actually expired in early July, but he chose to sign an extension to finish the storyline he was involved in on NXT.

The last match that Cole had for WWE’s NXT brand was at NXT Takeover 36 on August 22 when Cole lost a two out of three falls match to former friend turned rival Kyle O’Reilly.

A new report from Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp notes that Cole made a “non-negotiable” request in his contract talks with WWE.

According to Fightful’s update on Cole’s negotiations with WWE, the former NXT Champion told WWE that he wasn’t going to give up his Twitch channel that many other WWE superstars were forced to give up. Fightful reports:

“The WWE source we originally spoke to on the matter called it “non-negotiable” for him, and even said that higher ups weren’t excited to talk to him about it in general, because they didn’t have much leverage on the situation, and that was even before they knew his contract came up in July.”

The Twitch channel of WWE superstars garnered a lot of attention last October when WWE demanded that their superstars delete their Twitch channels because it’s a third-party platform where many of them were using their WWE names. The story was in the spotlight again when Zelina Vega quit WWE basically because she refused to close her Twitch channel. Zelina would end up returning to WWE earlier this year.

Cole debuted on the WWE NXT brand in August 2017 and quickly became the leader of the Undisputed Era. The group consisted of Cole, Kyle O’Reilly and the now released Bobby Fish. They would be joined by Roderick Strong along the way. The foursome dominated NXT for most of the next three years as a top heel group that have also participated in every WarGames match in NXT history. During Cole’s NXT run he was the NXT Champion for 403 days (the longest reigning champion in NXT history), he was the first NXT North American Champion and held the NXT Tag Team Titles too.

The 32-year-old Adam Cole remains a free agent. A return to WWE is possible leading to a run on Raw or Smackdown, but he could be headed to AEW where his girlfriend Dr. Britt Baker is the current AEW Women’s Champion. Cole is also close friends with AEW’s The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega going back to his pre-WWE days. Dr. Baker sent out the above tweet earlier in the week to have some fun with wrestling fans.

For what it’s worth, it is known how WWE reacted to Cole’s Twitch request.