Dave Meltzer Comments on Departure of Sheamus From WWE, How He Would Fit With AEW

We found out over the weekend that Sheamus will be departing WWE when his contract expires. It was reported that Sheamus turned down a contract extension, and was offered a restructured contract recently after his shoulder injury, which has kept him out of action since November 2025.

Dave Meltzer had some updates on Sheamus this morning and compares his situation to that of Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods. He states that TKO is interested in paying large amounts of money to wrestlers that move business, and less interested in paying those that don’t. Meltzer compares their business practices to that of sports teams, who make decisions to let go older, injury prone players all the time. As Meltzer points out, Sheamus is 48 and has been injured a lot in recent years.

Meltzer then goes on to speculate on whether AEW would be interested. He says that Sheamus’s age would be a factor, and AEW shouldn’t want to be the “WWE old-timers division”. Meltzer says Sheamus’ potential success would depend on his mindset, basically saying that if Sheamus has goals in mind other than WWE, it could work, but if he just wants to get back to WWE it won’t work. He also calls out the mentality of some that still think Paul Levesque loves them but that evil TKO let them go.

Meltzer says that Sheamus is a “good wrestler that works hard”, but isn’t a business difference maker. He goes on to say that several ex-WWE talents will be available soon and he assumes that some will go to AEW but not all. He closes by saying that AEW “already has too much talent for what they can already use well”.