Alberto Del Rio, now Alberto El Patron at IMPACT Wrestling, left WWE twice in a two year span, leaving the company in 2014, returning again in 2015 before leaving in October of that year for good. The first time he was fired after he hit a social media manager for making a racist joke. The second time came as a mutual parting of ways while his girlfriend, now wife, Paige dealt with a wellness policy suspension.
Del Rio now works in IMPACT Wrestling, while also serving as the president of MMA promotion Combates Americas, but there remains some question about why he would return to the wrestling world if he wasn’t interested in being part of WWE.
In a recent interview with ESPN’s Michael Wonsover, he gave the real reason for why he didn’t want to be a part of the WWE universe.
“That’s actually the main reason I decided to leave WWE, the brutal schedule that you have when you work for a company like WWE. I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to be on the road for 210-220 days per year,” El Patrón said. “That was one of my first things when I started having conversations with Impact Wrestling. They were asking me for a certain number of dates, and I said, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna do those dates because I also have my dates with Combates America, the MMA company.
“If I put all of those dates with you guys, I’m gonna end up doing what I was doing with WWE and that’s something that I don’t want. I want to be able to enjoy my ride. Of course I want to continue doing pro wrestling shows, but my time is for my family. So if you guys aren’t comfortable with this, I can give you this number amount of dates, and I promise I will give you my best.’ And of course they said yes. That’s the reason they’re happy with me. I’m happy with them.”
The schedule for WWE superstars is ridiculous. They spend an inordinate amount of time on the road, as he points out, doing not only the televised shows, but all the house shows that fill up the back end of the week schedule when RAW and Smackdown aren’t recording. He admitted that he didn’t blend in with the new generation of superstars in WWE after his most recent return to the company, so it’s no surprise that he didn’t want to spend the majority of his time on the road with a younger generation he didn’t understand.
