Why Powerhouse Hobbs Chose To Sign With WWE

A new report claims there’s a good reason Powerhouse Hobbs chose to join WWE rather than stay with AEW.

Powerhouse Hobbs has spent the last six years with AEW, but the big man’s deal expired earlier this month, and now he’s heading to WWE.

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp has now confirmed that Hobbs’s WWE signing is official, although there is no word yet on when he might debut on television.

During his AEW run, Hobbs was a former TNT and Trios Champion who was pushed to a certain level in the midcard and main-evented some television shows, but was never pushed to the top as a singles wrestler.

The 270-pounder Hobbs, who turns 35 today (January 23rd), was approached by AEW about returning to the company on a lucrative deal, but he has chosen to move on to WWE.

Hobbs has been wrestling since 2009, and only appeared in WWE once as part of a 2016 dark match against Baron Corbin.

A Future With WWE Interested Powerhouse Hobbs

Prior to the news of Hobbs’ AEW deal expiring, there were reports that WWE had interest in the big man.

In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reports that people in AEW had nothing bad to say about Hobbs and that WWE may have made him a lucrative offer that would be tough for anyone to refuse.

“Nobody in AEW had anything negative to say about him, with us being told he made the decision based on his family, which would seem to indicate he got a better money deal.

Some people go to WWE with the idea of going even with a lesser money offer, because it’s either their dream, or belief they want to be in the top place, or that it’s a better stepping stone to Hollywood than AEW. But Hobbs was a guy the company clearly really wanted and whether he was going to get much higher in AEW is a question.”

Hobbs’ final AEW match aired on the January 17th episode of Collision as he teamed up with Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata to lose the Trios Titles to the team of “Hangman” Adam Page, “Speedball” Mike Bailey, and Kevin Knight.