This is a script for my YouTube channel. You can find the full video Here.
It's a bit of a weird time for contracts in wrestling. We've got very public bidding wars coming up for the likes of Will Ospreay and MJF, as well as the TV deal with the NWA and the CW which I talked about a few days ago in a video. The NWA was apparently blindsided by the NXT announcement that was made yesterday as I'm making this video, so hopefully we'll get some more info on that soon.
A story that came about today might be the weirdest contract story yet though, as two luchadors that are most associated with AAA but also for a time worked for MLW were under the impression that they were under contracts, but found out today that they had been released in May of this year. Six months ago.
Let's get into who these wrestlers are first, Aramis is someone I first saw in MLW and I'm a fan of. In fact buried early in this channel is still a music video I made of an MLW match he had with another talent I'd only just seen, El Hijo Del Vikingo who has also made a lot of progress since those days.
I also found that Aramis was at one point due to work for AEW. I found a Wrestling Inc article stating according to Dave Meltzer his deal was allowed to expire but I couldn't find any trace of him ever wrestling for AEW. However per Fightful a year earlier that the story is that he was supposed to sign in early 2020 but this was halted due to the Pandemic. It's aslo worth noting that Tony signed a lot of wrestlers during the Pandemic to be in the crowds of his shows, or to wrestle on this 2 hour plus episodes of Dark that they ran back then. The Wrestling Inc article also has a quote from Khan where he states that he kept wrestlers under contract that he wasn't using on television so it's not very clear, but he was by all accounts on AEW's radar, and has since worked for PWG and even came to England last year for Progress.
Arez if I'm honest I'm less familiar with but his biggest US exposure seems to have been GCW, but he's also worked some for NWA. Once you see Arez you tend not to forget him as he doesn't just look unique but he has a very interesting style of wrestling with counters and moves I've never seen before. The long and the short of it is that both he and Aramis are really good wrestlers and should hopefully be working in bigger companies soon, especially since as Aramis noted upon discovering this today, they are both free agents.
Now all of this came about earlier today as of me making this when Arez posted a lengthy message to the general public on twitter in both Spanish and English. It's here if you wish to read it but the TLDR of it is that he hadn't been used by MLW for 18 months which is about accurate and the same for Aramis, and was he formally asking for a written release. There's also an odd part where Arez claims he was in his wording "ineligible" to work in the US when his deal started, but thinking back on it he started working for them during the Azteca series I think, which were episodes of MLW's shows taped in Mexico.
MLW then responded again by Twitter, stating that the pair had been released in May, and it was AAA's responsibility to inform them which they evidently did not. The only thing I can think of that might explain, but not quite justify this weird passing of the buck might be if there was a language barrier and MLW just thought it'd pass it on through AAA, but thats still not great is it. I mean imaging thinking you were signed to a company you hadn't been for six months? I would guess from this that they were paid per appearance in which case the deal must have been for some form of US exclusivity? Arez doesn't explain that in his statement.
Either way this is a bit of a weird situation made even weirder when you factor in that MLW in September announced that it had begun working with CMLL the other major Lucha promotion. Now admittedly I'm not an expert on Lucha Libre but I know CMLL and AAA hate each other to the point where wrestlers from the two companies can't work on the same shows, or it might just be the same matches. Recently AEW also started working with CMLL when they brought Mistico in having already worked with AAA for a long while. I wonder if that should have been a red flag for Aramis and Arez, who apparently were released four months before this.
Either way if they were working for MLW, despite not being used for about a year by May 2023, they probably should have informed them themselves. Interestingly though another story came out today stating that one of MLW's top stars Alex Hammerstone who requested his release a while back hasn't been used since July of this year and that communication between him and the company has been quote "sparse to put it nicely," so it seems their former World Champion hasn't been able to get much clarification either. To be a little fair, MLW's had a tough time of it this year, after effectively being pushed out of the TV deal with Reelz after that channel joined Peacock which WWE has exclusivity for, and then proceeding to sue WWE in return which has dragged on for months at this point. I do like MLW's shows when I get to see them, and both of the wrestlers involved so let's just hope for good things for each involved, starting with MLW maybe upgrading the companies fax machine.
Sources:
MLW Match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1atvH3syE7s 2 mins
Main article https://www.f4wonline.com/news/mlw/mlw-says-it-released-arez-aramis-in-may-aaa-did-not-inform-them
Aramis 1 https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2022/02/backstage-news-on-aew-not-renewing-contract-of-popular-wrestler/
Amaris 2 https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/report-aramis-almost-signed-aew-prior-covid-19-pandemic
Arez statement: https://twitter.com/ArezStrange/status/1722265506974138733
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