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Ex-AEW Star Suffers Big Hit As TNA Run Ends

By Lyle Kilbane • Published 24th April 2025
AEW logo over Dark Order

A former AEW star has hit another roadblock in their wrestling career as they confirm that their time in TNA has also now come to an end.

Back in the fall of 2022, Dark Order member Alan ‘5’ Angels appeared on Talk Is Jericho to explain when he found out that his AEW contract was not getting renewed:

I was told that they weren’t going to renew my contract about 45 days before it was up and basically, they just weren’t gonna give me the same deal. They were gonna give me a per appearance deal if I wanted it. I figured that maybe I had reached the limit of where I could get here right now at this run in my career, this point in my career. I came into AEW as virtually a nobody. I’d wrestled maybe three years doing the Southeast.

I built up a little bit of a following on the internet and stuff like that, but I feel like, there was a perception of me, and I know a lot of people hate this word, but like, I just kind of was the jobber of The Dark Order, the bottom guy on The Dark Order.

I feel like when fans build up that perception of you, I think it’s kind of hard to change that, if that makes sense. I think once that’s decided, once they get that, there’s no changing it unless like, you know, gradually you build up, build up, build up, but like, I feel like in AEW, I feel like that would have taken a really long time if that makes sense.

Alan Angels didn’t have to sit on the sidelines for long, as he was immediately signed by TNA, where he ended up joining The Design. However, that run is now at an end.

Ex-AEW Star Alan Angels Says Goodbye To TNA

Angels released a statement on social media after news broke that his contract with TNA expired several months ago, and he confirmed his departure from the promotion:

The thing about wrestling is no matter how much you love it, it doesn’t have to love you back. Wrestling doesn’t owe anyone anything. Not going to lie, this is a big hit to me. I love TNA. It was an absolute dream to wrestle there under a brand that I have watched since I was little. I love the locker room even more and I’m leaving with nothing but good memories of the friends that I have made there. I am once again starting over and truthfully I have no idea what’s next, but I will never give up.

Wrestling is my passion and has been since the day I started watching as a 7 year old boy. It’s all I think about every second of every day and I can’t imagine ever not doing it.

Thank you to anyone that ever even watched me on a TNA program and just know this isn’t the end for me.

Angels’ TNA contract is believed to have expired in December 2024, and he has been working on the independent scene since then.