WWE Rumors: Reason why Vince McMahon released 3-time Intercontinental Champion
What's the story?
WWE legend and 3-time IC Champion Goldust was recently released by WWE. We now have more backstage details regarding his release.
In case you didn't know...
Dustin Runnels aka Goldust made his WWE debut way back in 1990 and has wrestled for the company since then with a few runs in other promotions including WCW and TNA intermittently through his career.
Goldust's departure from WWE was confirmed a few days ago when the three-time IC Champion was quietly moved to WWE's alumni page.
Goldust also commented on his departure from WWE on Twitter. Here's what the WWE legend had to say:
Runnels has had a successful career by anyone's standards and wrote himself into wrestling lore with the Golust character. Following his release from WWE, it was reported that Goldust will be retiring the Goldust character.
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The heart of the matter
Goldust was released from his WWE contract earlier this week and we now have more details on the situation thanks to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. According to Meltzer, Vince McMahon did not want to release Goldust even though he hadn't been meaningfully used in a storyline in a long time. The report states that it was Triple H who had to convicnce Mr. McMahon to release Goldust from his WWE contract. Goldust reportedly asked for his release on January 19th which was eventually granted with the 90-day no-compete clause.
Goldust was out with injury and only recently returned from double knee surgery.
What's next?
It looks like Goldust will be competing at AEW's first PPV, Double or Nothing 2, where he looks set to face his half-brother Cody. This should be a great match and it will be interesting to see what level Goldust can still perform at.