Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: aew, Cesaro, ring of honor, roh, Seth Rollins, Smackdown, wrestling, wwe, WWE Contract, wwe release

Cesaro, WWE Quietly Part Ways; Reportedly Turns Down Contract Ext

After cutting and pushing out talent like crazy over the past year, WWE has seemingly changed their ways the past couple of months by signing veteran wrestlers like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and this week, AJ Styles to lucrative new deals to stay with the company.  Well, that changed today as we're learning this afternoon that one of the company's best veteran wrestlers, Cesaro, has quietly left WWE after he and the company failed to come to terms on a new contract.

Mike Johnson of PWInsider reported this afternoon that Cesaro and WWE have parted ways.  His current deal was up and while they were in negotiations, with WWE offering him simply an extension of his current deal, Cesaro (real name Claudio Castagnoli) decided that wasn't what he wanted and let the contract expire.

Also of note is since his contract simply expired here and he wasn't released, Cesaro will not have to sit out for the 90-day no-compete clause that his fellow former WWE superstars had to endure.  "This would be a case of Cesaro's contract expiring, so there would be no 90-day non compete.  Cesaro had been slated to be at tomorrow's SmackDown taping in Hershey, PA, but will obviously no longer be there as his deal expired earlier this week."

Since signing with WWE in 2011, Cesaro has gone on to become one of WWE's most consistent and respected wrestlers on their roster.  While always mentioned by his peers as one of the best and always high on fans' lists of who they want to see more of, WWE management never seemed to get behind him for a major push.  He voiced his frustrations with this recently after being noticeably excluded from this year's Royal Rumble event.

Cesaro's last match was on the February 11 episode of SmackDown in a losing effort to Happy Corbin, who seems to be making a career out of being the final WWE opponent for guys infinitely better than him.

Raw star Seth Rollins appears to have paid tribute to Cesaro on his personal Twitter, posting a gif of the now-former WWE star doing a no-handed Airplane Spin on him.

At only 41 years old and appearing to be in great shape, Cesaro still has plenty of wrestling matches in front of him.  While almost instinctually, most fans would think he'd next show up in AEW like many other former WWE stars, it's possible he might take his talents overseas or back to his old stomping grounds of ROH when they come back or even give IMPACT a try.  A guy as talented as him has all the options in the world in front of him, so hopefully, Cesaro will find a good landing spot soon where he'll be happy and successful.

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