5 reasons WWE Superstars leave the company
WWE is the largest professional wrestling/sports entertainment promotion in the world. People may enjoy NJPW or ROH more than WWE, but the fact remains that it is the mecca in the world of pro wrestling.
It gets the most exposure, makes the most money and has the highest production quality. For these reasons, most wrestlers around the world aspire to make it to WWE at some point. But there are many that don’t (looking at you, Kenny Omega), and there are plenty that decide they want to leave once they get there.
There is a variety of reasons why WWE superstars may eventually decide being in WWE isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Some of them are personal, some business-related, and some are just petty. We’re going to go through the five biggest reasons why WWE superstars leave the company.
#5 Money
While WWE is the most popular wrestling company in the world, that doesn’t necessarily mean it pays the best. Make no mistake, the salaries they give their Superstars are largely very lucrative. But for many wrestlers, particularly those who are not at the top of the food chain in WWE, their salaries aren’t enough to make WWE the best place for them.
Take Curtis Axel, for example.
Per TotalSportek.com, Axel made $75,000 in 2016. That isn’t a bad salary by any means, especially for someone like Axel who is used so sporadically on WWE TV. But when these Superstars have to travel around the world year-round and have to pay those expenses themselves, working for WWE as a lower-level talent becomes far less enticing.
Then there’s the issue of merchandise.
The Young Bucks never “left” WWE since they were never there, to begin with. But one of their reasons for joining the WWE is something that many WWE Superstars have likely thought about when considering leaving.
The Bucks, as is the case with all independent talent, are allowed to sell their own merchandise and keep 100 percent of the profit. They have made a killing off of their various Bullet Club/Young Bucks merchandise and it’s no surprise they would prefer to continue being able to do that.
In WWE, the company produces the merchandise and the Superstars are given a cut of the profit, rather than the entire thing. On the surface, it may look like WWE is the place to be when it comes to money. But with everything else factored in, that’s not necessarily true for the guys lower on the totem pole.