It’s been a year of shocking departures when it comes to WWE and it was recently reported that Sheamus is parting ways with the company after he declined to sign a restructured contract.
Offering restructured contracts seems to be the new normal in WWE as it was reported months ago that some names were asked to take a pay cut, and The New Day also decided to part ways with the company after they were asked to restructure their deals.
Dave Meltzer discussed Sheamus’ WWE departure on Wrestling Observer Radio and noted that TKO is willing to pay really giant money to names that they perceive as stars. However, the company is less keen on the idea of paying older wrestlers who are on the downside of their career big money.
“It’s like a TKO thing. You know, from talking to people there, the situation is that they are willing to pay really, really, really giant money to people who they perceive as the stars, like a sports team, you know what I mean?
But when it’s older wrestlers who they perceive as being on their downside and have big contracts, they are very much like an NFL team that will go, rather than pay a guy a giant salary who’s on the downside, we would rather spend our resources on somebody younger, who also we can pay less to. So, the offer to Sheamus, like, really doesn’t surprise me at all. It was the behavior of a guy I would expect to, you know, something like this to happen, and we’ll see.”
At this point it’s not clear what’s next for Sheamus as he has yet to publicly comment on his departure, but WWE has officially moved his profile to the alumni section on their website.