5 times WWE superstars had to be convinced to extend their contract
Thanks to the multitude of employment options in wrestling today, WWE isn't the monopoly in the wrestling industry that it used to be. In different situations, WWE has to convince superstars to re-sign their contract. Whether it's due to a good offer from a different promotion, or superstars simply wanting to leave, WWE has had to break out their checkbook to convince superstars to re-sign and extend their contract. Here are five relatively recent examples:
#5. The Good Brothers - How Triple H convinced them to re-sign with WWE
The Good Brothers have a home at Impact Wrestling now, and they're thriving with a lot more creative freedom. It's not far-fetched to say that their 4-year run with WWE was underwhelming.
There was a lot more expected, but WWE never gave them the push or the opportunity to showcase what they became famous for. Eventually, their contracts were expiring and they told Ryan Satin, formerly of Pro Wrestling Sheet, that Triple H had approached them while in Japan and asked them what it would take for them to re-sign with WWE.
Being as honest as possible, The Good Brothers admitted that it was likely to be their last WWE contract before going into free agency. In a rather surprising response, Triple H said:
"I look and you and I see your kids, and what if AEW doesn't last? I promise you WWE will always be here."
Speaking separately to Chris Van Vliet, Doc Gallows stated that when there was interest from AEW, WWE "backed up the bank truck" to their house and gave them an offer that was hard to refuse. While he admitted in hindsight that it wasn't the right call, he said that it ultimately worked out fine:
"[I now know] that it wasn't the right decision, but now I can honestly say, everything does happen for a reason because we're happy with how things turned out," he added. "But it sucked that we were that close to leaving and we didn't, and we didn't bet on ourselves, and we stuck around, and we took their money, and we saw what happened when the pandemic occurred."
AJ Styles also had a large role to play in convincing the duo to stay in WWE. Gallows stated that the reason why AJ Styles felt terrible about their release was that he was influential in them staying.
However, Gallows said that at the end of the day, they're adults and the decision to stay was on the two of them. They may not have liked the run, but they were released from WWE during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This also seemingly caused high levels of tension between AJ Styles and then-RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman.