It seems like it’s getting harder for Impact Wrestling to keep talent. Ever since their restructuring and move to Canada as a company, things have been changing. But Impact Wrestling has been in a constant state of change for a while now regardless of who’s at the helm. However, this new phase in the company’s history seems to be especially different.
James Strom recently left Impact Wrestling and he’s now taking indie bookings. The reason he decided to leave the company was that they couldn’t offer him the guaranteed money he was getting before. Therefore, it is the general belief that more top-dollar contracts might not be getting renewed with the same monetary gusto as they were getting before.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports the expectation is that Bobby Lashley and Ethan Carter III will leave the company when their contracts are up. One or both of them are expected to wind up in WWE as well.
Bobby Lashley had a pretty good run with WWE. Even though it only lasted four short years, he accomplished a lot including being part of a history-making moment which saw Donald Trump appearing at WrestleMania 23 in the “Battle of the Billionaires” where he was the future POTUS’ representative against Vince McMahon who picked Umaga to fight his battle for him. Of course, this match would famously result in Vince McMahon having his head shaved.
Ethan Carter III also spent a few years under a WWE contract but he never made it to the main roster. Instead, he stayed in NXT as Derrick Bateman until his eventual release from his contract in 2013. With Impact Wrestling’s new policy regarding workers getting to keep their gimmicks, he could very well take his EC3 gimmick to WWE.
If Impact Wrestling lost these two big stars, they’d still have plenty of guys to fill the top of the card as they are constantly moving pieces around to facilitate these on-going changes. But it will be very interesting to see how WWE might handle Lashley or EC3 a second time around.
