Andrade El Idolo Reportedly Facing a One-Year Non-Compete Period From WWE, Note on Current WWE/TKO Contracts

The situation involving Andrade El Idolo, AEW, and WWE just took another bizarre shift. As noted, Andrade was reportedly pulled from AEW programming after being sent a cease-and-desist order from WWE, and it appears that Andrade was facing a 90-day non-compete period. However, a new report from F4WOnline.com indicates that Andrade’s non-compete period is considerably longer than 90 days.

Now, F4WOnline’s Bryan Alvarez has reportedly confirmed with multiple sources that it’s standard for new WWE/TKO contracts to have a clause where wrestlers have a one-year non-compete period if they are fired with cause or due to a breach in their contract. That means Andrade could be out of in-ring action until later next year.

Alvarez said on Andrade El Idolo having a one-year non-compete clause from WWE, “We have it confirmed through multiple sources that the new TKO contracts have a clause where if you are fired, there is a one-year non-compete. The older contracts had this, but it’s standard now.” He continued, “This is the hold-up involving Andrade. Very skeptical this would hold up in a legal battle, but it’s in the contracts.”

Andrade El Idolo made his AEW return on the Dynamite six-year anniversary show on October 1. He appeared less than a month after his reported firing from WWE. It’s rumored that Andrade had multiple wellness policy violations ahead of his release.

Also, PWInsider Elite reported that Andrade is not getting paid by WWE during his non-compete period. Fightful Select noted that such a clause would be easy to fight in court.

Speaking to Bryan Alvarez on today’s Wrestling Observer Live, former WWE Superstar Lance Storm stated that the one-year non-compete period was written into WWE contracts when he returned to the company as a producer in 2019. Storm stated, “It was in contracts before TKO. When I went back in 2019, there was a, if you were fired with cause, one-year no-compete.”

Storm indicated that when he asked about the issue to John Laurinaitis, “He [Laurinaitis] reiterated, ‘That’s standard now, but you obviously have to have been fired for cause or breach,’ and since I’m the last person to worry about that, I went, ‘Okay, whatever.'”

Alvarez speculated that the one-year non-compete will not hold up in court, citing the past issue with WWE trying to hold Brock Lesnar to a 10-year non-compete after he left WWE in 2004. Alvarez noted that TKO has made this clause standard in WWE contracts, “not because WWE are a bunch of horrible, evil people,” but to avoid wrestlers attempting to get intentionally fired or leaving long-term contracts to go to another promotion like AEW.

Alvarez explained that WWE ultimately wants to avoid a situation similar to what happened with Andrade El Idolo and Sammy Guevara’s backstage incident, noting that when AEW wrestlers were unhappy and wanted to leave and go back to WWE, they sought to get out of their deals or get themselves fired. Alvarez called it a situation of, “If you are fired, no, you can’t just go and work for somebody else the next day. You agreed to be here for X amount of time, and that’s the situation.”

Additionally, Alvarez noted that for WWE to uphold the clause, they have to fire someone “with cause,” meaning the wrestler or talent has to be the cause of the termination. For example, if they were to fire a wrestler simply because they don’t want him in WWE anymore, that wrestler would be allowed to go wherever they want.

It’s currently unknown if AEW has similar clauses in its contracts if wrestlers are terminated with cause. Former AEW star CM Punk famously had his wrestler and employee contracts terminated by AEW in September 2023 following a backstage incident with Jack Perry that took place at AEW All In London on August 27 of that year. Punk later made his WWE return at Survivor Series: WarGames on November 25, 2023. Punk later told Ariel Helwani on his show last year that he never a no-compete deal.

Andrade took additional bookings after his WWE termination. He also wrestled for The Crash in Mexico earlier this month. His previously advertised date at Mucha Lucha in Atlanta was recently cancelled.

In addition to returning to AEW, Andrade worked a match for The Crash in Mexico on October 3. He’s been scheduled for upcoming dates for WWC in Puerto Rico and Mucha Lucha in Atlanta. The latter of those is no longer being advertised.