When news broke that Beth Phoenix's Legends contract had officially come to an end with WWE, fans almost immediately began to ask the same question: will she join Adam Copeland in AEW?
On paper, the concept is a borderline no-brainer; Copeland, despite being out with an injury, is one of the top talents in AEW, both from an in-ring standpoint and as a locker-room leader. While Phoenix hasn't wrestled much as of late, she was a pivotal commentator in NXT during many of AEW's current stars' runs in the promotion and could instantly add a sense of authority to an ever-evolving women's division, especially considering her relationship with Mercedes Mone from their time in WWE.
Discussing the prospects of Phoenix joining him in AEW back during the media scrum of WrestleDream, Copeland noted that he would love to spend as much time with his wife as possible, even if, at the time, he was under contract with WWE.
“Anytime I get to be close to Beth, obviously, I’m going to be super excited about that. I don’t know about the possibilities of that in the foreseeable. I love being around her, obviously, and we’ve had a blast when we did get to work together,” Adam Copeland told reporters via Fightful. “Where she will be instrumental without anyone knowing it is she is my sounding board. If you see me do something that you think worked, it was always bounced off Beth and she always gives me better ideas back. It’s kind of amazing to be married to a Hall of Famer. It’s pretty cool. Who can suplex you [laughs].”
Could Phoenix ultimately decide to simply take a step back from wrestling to spend time with her family? Sure, that's totally possible, and no one would hold that against her if that was the decision made. And yet, if Phoenix, like Copeland, always wanted to do more than WWE was willing to offer her, then why not come to AEW, call Collisons with Nigel McGuinness, and occasionally get in the ring for a singles match or a mixed-tag match. All things considered, bringing Phoenix into AEW feels like a borderline no-brainer for all parties involved.
Dijak's hypothesis about his exit from WWE
Speaking of exits from WWE, Donovan Dijak recently discussed why WWE decided to call him up to the main roster only to then release him without a single match on television a little over a month later in an interview with Chris Van Vliet.
While the former Retribution member doesn't know for sure what happened, as no one ever told him straight up, he does have a theory that holds a good bit of water, all things considered.
“I can give you my hypothesis. I don’t know this to be fact. It’s a complete guess and no one has told me otherwise. I don’t know when this decision was made. But at some point, there was likely a decision made that Dijak or T-BAR is on a main roster contract, and under that main roster contract, it concludes on June 28, 2024. So I’m in NXT on a main roster contract. So at some point, whether it was before I went to NXT, or during NXT, or whether it’s right before the draft, I think at some point a decision was made that he’s on a main roster contract on NXT, and that doesn’t work in whatever capacity. I’m not sure, but my guess would be they don’t want to renew a contract for someone who’s on NXT. My guess would also be, not my guess, but I know that they didn’t have a creative plan for me on RAW. So at that point, what do you do?” Dijak asked via Fightful.
“You can leave me on NXT. But if you leave me on NXT and the plan is to just let my contract expire, then that doesn’t look good. Because if the plan was, I wasn’t directly told, but it was alluded to me that the plan was for me to, or there was at least a pitch for me to feud with Trick Williams for the NXT Championship. So if that happens and it plays out at Battleground and we have a match, my contract is up maybe a week later or something like that, I don’t know the exact timing of it. So if you’re WWE, do you want someone having a feud for the main championship and then not being employed the next week? That’s probably not a great scenario. So I think, my guess is they looked at all the possible scenarios and said, Okay, best case scenario right now for us and what we want to do with his contract is just kind of quietly bring him up to RAW and just kind of hope he fades away.”
If WWE never planned on bringing Dijak back, then yeah, placing him in a program with Trick Williams after being such a prominent fixture of weekly television probably would have been a mistake, unless, of course, Shawn Michaels booked something like a Loser Leaves Town match that gave the once and former developmental standout a farewell on his way back to the indies. Even if the optics are bad, letting him fade away on RAW simply made things easier for WWE, even if it left a bad taste in the mouths of more than a few fans in the know.
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