Insight Into AEW Contracts & One Major Difference To WWE’s

The contracts that AEW wrestlers sign are not necessarily the same as what WWE talents sign, especially when it comes to when a release happens.

It is widely known by WWE fans that when a wrestler on the main roster (Raw & Smackdown) gets released, they usually have a 90-day non-compete clause that would prevent them from working with another wrestling promotion on television for at least 90 days, which is about three months. NXT deals have a 30-day non-compete for the most part.

Since WWE has released dozens of wrestlers in the last three years in particular since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, there have been many instances where talents were let go from WWE leading to their debuts (or returns) in AEW, Impact Wrestling or somewhere else.

Recently in the news, the FTC in the US has pushed for companies to eliminate non-compete clauses in contracts, which has led to some people in wrestling to think that maybe it will affect how WWE does business.

According to Fightful Select, WWE’s biggest competitor All Elite Wrestling (AEW) doesn’t have the standard non-compete clauses that WWE has. That information has come from contracts that Fightful has seen along with numerous talents that spoke to Fightful about it.

The reason AEW deals are different is because they generally don’t release talent anyway unless it’s for a disciplinary reason or a special request. In the case of talents being released early, Fightful was told that it depends on a case-by-case basis.

An example of this is that if CM Punk were to be let out of his AEW deal early, there could be something that’s a condition of the release stating that Punk can’t work for WWE (or some other specific wrestling promotion) for a certain amount of days.