Kevin Owens, Kyle O’Reilly and Johnny Gargano have been three of the biggest names in WWE, whose contract issues have been concerning the fans. Apart from Owens; O’Reilly and Gargano’s contract recently expired and they are seemingly free agents. Speculations emerged that Owens, whose contract will expire soon, could be heading to AEW. The Young Bucks and Owens himself have been possibly teasing a reunion at AEW. But now it seems, WWE has succeeded in keeping KO with them.
Kevin Owens seemingly signed a new deal with WWE
FightfulSelect.com recently reported that KO might have signed a new deal with WWE and the company ‘has landed at least one of their three big free-agent names.’ It was also previously noted that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon had rejected an offer involving Owens.
Fightful reported that several weeks ago that WWE was very interested in retaining Kevin Owens, and made him what sources in the company was “an excellent offer” to stay. WWE sources that we spoke to said they were over the moon about retaining Owens.
Talent within AEW we spoke to didn’t think AEW would realistically match what WWE would offer him to stay with the company. The AEW talent reportedly believes that there would have been interest, though company officials obviously can’t comment on such without tampering issues.
Owens’ deal was originally up much later, but in 2019, he restructured it to expire at the end of January 2022. WWE started the negotiation process with Owens in the fall of 2021, which is a far cry from how they used to do things.
It was reported back in September that Owens’ contract was set to expire in January. The 37-year-old signed a five-year deal with WWE back in 2018, but the contract underwent adjustments that pushed up the expiration date.
Owens is not the only star whose contract was slated to expire as it includes KO’s real life best friend, Sami Zayn. They have been featured on the main event scenes of Raw and SmackDown, respectively. The Prized Fighter will compete in a fatal four way match against Big E, Bobby Lashley and Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship at the Day 1 pay-per-view on New Year’s Day.
While Zayn recently unsuccessfully challenged WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, after Brock Lesnar forced Zayn to compete against ‘The Tribal Chief’. Zayn was attacked by ‘The Beast Incarnate’ on consecutive weeks and we will have to see how this storyline pans out moving forward.
