There was some surprising news earlier this week when we found that that former two-time WWE Cruiserweight Champion Neville reportedly left Monday’s Raw in Indianapolis when he was unhappy with what the company had planned for him.
According to the new Wrestling Observer Newsletter by Dave Meltzer, the plan was for Enzo Amore to face Neville in a non-title match with Enzo (who was the Cruiserweight Champion going into Raw) getting the victory. The match was scheduled to be the main event. When Neville became aware of those plans, he chose to walk out. Meltzer noted that the plan changed to Kalisto beating Enzo for the Cruiserweight Title in a Lumberjack Match because it was a last minute idea by Vince McMahon since WWE’s creative team couldn’t come up with something else.
The plan is to get the Cruiserweight Title back on Enzo soon since the Cruiserweight division has been built around him for the last couple of months and Enzo is featured heavily on 205 Live as well. Kalisto vs. Neville is already announced for WWE TLC on October 22, so Enzo will likely win back the Cruiserweight title there.
Neville was booked for the Tuesday’s 205 Live show (which takes place after Smackdown), but he wasn’t there for that. The belief among those in the company is that Neville is gone from WWE with Meltzer adding that a person close to the situation insists that Neville is “100 percent gone.” Meltzer added that WWE’s official statement is that Neville is still with the company and that he didn’t quit.
An interesting part of the story is that PWInsider reported on Wednesday that “numerous WWE sources” have denied that Neville is gone. On Thursday, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Neville wasn’t on the road this weekend at WWE live events and he wasn’t even at Raw. They also reported that Neville has pushed for a release to try to build his name outside the company like Drew McIntyre/Galloway did before he returned to WWE. Neville also was upset that he was left off the WrestleMania 33 DVD because he was on the Kickoff show with Austin Aries, which meant less royalites from WWE. They added that Neville is still under contract to WWE and hasn’t been released.
It seems like there’s more to the story that will likely come out soon because in the wrestling business, there’s always more and people always like to talk about it. Neville could have been unhappy with being labeled a cruiserweight and he probably wanted to do more, but if creative told him he’s only going to be a cruiserweight then maybe that’s why he left. It could have been a financial issue. We just don’t know yet.
As for Neville’s future, if he is gone from WWE it may take some time to work out the contract details and for him to be free. If he is on the indies again, he’ll have plenty of options with Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling and the indy wrestling scene is strong right now. He would likely go back to his indy wrestling name of “Pac” and if he does then Marty Scurll of the Bullet Club has already offered him a spot as his tag team partner.
https://twitter.com/MartyScurll/status/918206735847968768
Those two would make a great team of evil British men.
We will have updates on Neville’s future when more is known. For now, WWE hasn’t officially released him and Neville hasn’t said anything publicly, so perhaps both sides will try to work it out.
