Powerhouse Hobbs’ time with AEW appears to be coming to an end, with WWE widely viewed as his next destination.
As noted Wednesday night, Hobbs’ AEW contract is expiring, and he is expected to sign with WWE. Hobbs officially wrapped up with AEW on Wednesday by filming a Trios Championship defense that is scheduled to air this weekend on AEW Collision: Maximum Carnage (Full Spoilers Here), which is expected to be his final appearance for the company.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com (see video below), Dave Meltzer noted that WWE has been “very high” on Hobbs for some time and has long anticipated adding him to their roster.
“With Hobbs, WWE had expected that they had Hobbs for actually quite a while. I know that they thought that the match last Wednesday was going to be his last one, but he actually did a match I believe on Collision. That will air on Saturday, so that will be his last match,” Meltzer said. “His contract actually expires today. But, yeah, [WWE] expected him to go there. AEW made an offer. He turned down the AEW offer, wanted to go to WWE. We’ll see. For some people it’s the right move, and for some people it isn’t.”
While WWE has reportedly been confident for months that Hobbs would be heading their way, Meltzer suggested that AEW continuing to feature Hobbs on television may indicate that Tony Khan and company were not fully certain of his departure until recently.
“Tony liked him and everything. And he was professional,” Meltzer said. “Tony didn’t take him off TV, so that tells me he didn’t know he was going. But, like I said, WWE — they were pretty confident they’ve had him for months, really.”
Hobbs, 34, joined AEW in 2020 after making a name for himself on the California independent scene. During his run with the company, he captured the TNT Championship and later held the AEW Trios Championships alongside his Opps stablemates, Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata.
