Plainly Powerhouse Hobbs’ time with AEW is coming to an end as he looks to be making the jump to WWE within the near future.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select has reported that Hobbs’ contract with AEW expires at midnight on January 14, and he finished up with the corporate on the conclusion of the Maximum Carnage edition of “AEW Collision,” which was taped tonight.
Dave Meltzer wrote in last week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that there was interest in Hobbs from WWE for a while, but now evidently the corporate have finally got its man as sources from inside WWE expect Hobbs to sign with the corporate barring any major changes in the subsequent few days. Sapp noted that there had been rumors about Hobbs heading to WWE in 2025, but he was told there had been no contact from WWE at the moment. With that said, there was reported contact a number of years back when Dan Ventrelle was the Head of Talent Relations in WWE, but Hobbs ended up re-signing with AEW as an alternative.
AEW did make a giant try to retain Hobbs’ services because the contract negotiations had been ongoing for a while, and the corporate made him what AEW sources called a “huge” offer to remain. Despite the offer to Hobbs from AEW being extremely large, he decided to check the waters outside of AEW and is leaving the corporate on superb terms. While he’s contractually eligible to sign with WWE this week, Hobbs can be in motion on the Maximum Carnage edition of “Collision” which airs this Saturday as he’ll look to defend the AEW World Trios Championships one last time alongside Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata of The Opps as they tackle the team of Hangman Page and JetSpeed.
It has not yet been confirmed whether Hobbs can be heading to “WWE NXT” or the fundamental roster on the time of writing, because of the indisputable fact that his final AEW match has been taped and can air this weekend, he can be allowed to look on “WWE SmackDown” this Friday. Hobbs leaves AEW as a former AEW TNT Champion, and one-third of the longest reigning AEW World Trios Champions alongside the aforementioned Samoa Joe and Katsuyori Shibata.