Bobby Fish and AEW officials reportedly failed to agree on financial terms before his release last month.
As we’ve noted, Fish became a free agent after his one-year contract was not renewed on August 31. It was reported last week, by the Wrestling Observer, that the door is not closed on Fish and AEW possibly reaching a new deal in the future, but that he was released when the two sides could not agree on a new deal.
In an update, a new report from Fightful Select notes that Fish and AEW had entered into talks about possibly renewing his deal, and there was some interest on both sides about continuing the relationship, but the two sides could not come to terms financially, and so they parted ways.
It was noted that AEW thought the split was somewhat amicable until Fish’s tweets criticizing CM Punk’s in-ring work, which actually came after Punk’s match with Jon Moxley on the August 24 edition of AEW Dynamite, as seen below. Fish later challenged Punk to a fight on The Undisputed podcast, as noted at this link.
There were issues with Fish and Punk while Fish was with the company, but those issues reportedly did not have any bearing on Fish’s contract expiring. Fish reportedly told many people that he did not appreciate Punk’s attitude after the match they had on the October 27, 2021 Dynamite, which Punk won.
Fish remains friendly with many people in the company.
It was also said that there wasn’t much by the way of creative plans for Fish once Kyle O’Reilly’s injury happened.
There’s been no talk of WWE reaching out to Fish, and he has not been mentioned creatively from what is being said so far.
Fish is already taking indie bookings, and has seminars and matches scheduled.
Fish last appeared on AEW TV for the August 3 edition of Dynamite, when The Undisputed Elite returned. Fish, O’Reilly and Adam Cole turned on The Young Bucks to seemingly launch some sort of feud, but they have not been seen since then. Fish spent some time on the shelf earlier this summer with an ankle injury following his June 17 Rampage loss to Darby Allin, but he returned to the ring with a win over Blake Li at the July 13 tapings for Dark: Elevation, which aired on the July 18 episode.
After being released by WWE on August 6, 2021 along with other budget cuts, Fish worked the debut event for Battleground Championship Wrestling and then worked the MLW Fightland tapings on October 2. He defeated Lee Moriarty in the opening round of the Opera Cup Tournament, but then lost to winner and MLW National Openweight Champion Davey Richards in the semi-finals. Fish then made his AEW debut on the October 6, 2021 edition of Dynamite, where he unsuccessfully challenged then-AEW TNT Champion Sammy Guevara. It was announced later that night how Fish had signed a contract with AEW. He then reunited with Cole in November, and O’Reilly in December following their WWE departures and AEW debuts. Fish and O’Reilly officially returned to tag team competition as reDRagon, but failed to capture the AEW World Tag Team Titles at Revolution in March and on the April 13 Dynamite.
You can click here for Fish’s recent comments on how he recently had a backstage altercation with AAA, IWGP & ROH World Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood. You can click here for his recent comments praising WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H, and how he would go to war for him. Fish also recently discussed how he was presented in AEW at this link.
Stay tuned to WrestlingHeadlines.com for more. Below are the aforementioned tweets:
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