The story of Neville leaving WWE in the last month disappointed a lot of fans because he was one of the best performers in the company this year. When Neville lost the Cruiserweight Championship to Enzo Amore, many of us hoped that this would mean Neville would take his awesome heel character into feuds with wrestlers on the main roster rather than other cruiserweights. Instead, Neville asked for his release and that was nearly a month ago, so fans are wondering what’s up.
In the latest Neville update, it was reported by Sports Illustrated that Neville’s release will be drawn out meaning that WWE isn’t simply going to let him go as he pleases while noting that it is affecting WWE’s payroll. They are likely going to let his contract expire or come to some agreement. That’s why there hasn’t been any sort of official comment from WWE regarding Neville since early October when this story made its way onto the internet.
This is a similar situation to what Rey Mysterio dealt with a few years ago when WWE renewed Rey Mysterio’s deal without telling him, which led to him not getting out of his WWE deal as early as he wanted. He may have wanted to be free from WWE earlier than that, but from WWE’s perspective they were not obligated to grant him a release just because he asked for it.
In the case of current Smackdown General Manager Daniel Bryan, most people know that he wants to wrestle again, but WWE has concerns due to his concussion history. Bryan could try to ask for his release and walk out, but if he did that then WWE would do what they did with Mysterio to prevent. All we know with Bryan is that his deal is up in September 2018 and at that point, he could walk away from WWE so he can go back to Ring of Honor to try wrestling again. That’s going to be one of the biggest stories of 2018, no doubt about it.
As for recently-released talents like Emma, Darren Young and Summer, it was reported by the Wrestling Observer that they are all being paid by WWE through the end of February on non-compete deals and they won’t be able to sign anywhere until March.
What all of this means for level is that we might have to wait about some potential dream matches for him in New Japan, Ring of Honor, Impact Wrestling or wherever you may want to see him.
