Rumor killer on Ricky Starks quietly leaving AEW following contract expiry
Rumors circulating regarding Ricky Starks' AEW contract expiring have surfaced, and this has led to the speculation that he could be headed to WWE. Recent reports have debunked this and confirmed that he was still with the promotion.
Starks, along with Big Bill (FKA Big Cass), held the AEW World Tag Team titles for roughly four months before they were dethroned by Sting and Darby Allin almost a month ago on Dynamite. He has not been seen on live programming since then.
Fightful Select has debunked these rumors, as these were currently baseless. They revealed that sources within the company were not even aware that such rumors were surfacing, and other sources close to Ricky Starks have confirmed that he was still under contract with AEW. They did not reveal how much time he has under his current contract.
Ricky Starks talks about when he was offered an AEW contract
A few weeks ago, Ricky Starks talked about how he ended up joining All Elite Wrestling.
Back in 2020, he was a surprise competitor during Cody Rhodes' TNT Championship Open Challenge. Despite losing, Tony Khan was impressed with him and ended up offering him a contract.
While appearing on Hold the Mayo, Ricky Starks talked about how it all went down and how he had never expected to be given this opportunity.
"I didn't re-sign [with NWA] because I felt like I had hit my ceiling already," Starks said. "I quit, basically, right when COVID happened. So I had no paycheck. So I was making all my money online from my t-shirts on my website. I had did this video. I make these different vignettes, these videos... A promotional package for myself. I direct all of them, I pay for all of them, I produce all of them. And I had posted it online. I posted it online, and Cody [Rhodes] had replied to it like 'Oh, this is cool.' That was... That may have been in May or something like that. The end of May comes around, I get an email from him saying, 'Hey, we want you to come in and do this Open Challenge for the TNT Title.' I said 'Okay. I'm just cooped up in my house right now. I'll do it.'"
Starks added:
"So, I have the match," Starks said. "And then I walk to the back, and people were just like 'That was good. Good job. Blah blah blah. Good job.' But I didn't hear anything about if I had a job or not. People were just like 'Man, you may have a job. You did really good.' So I go home, and then the night that it airs, the match itself, I get a text from Tony like 'I'd like to offer you this deal... I'd like to offer you a contract.'"
It remains to be seen how The Absolute star's career will go, seeing as many eyes are now on him. He could have the attention of other promotions.
Would you like to see Ricky Starks in WWE? Let us know in the comments section below.