Last week, Ibou from WrestlePurists noted that Buddy Matthews was staying with the company, and that Malakai Black had a short amount of time left on the deal.
The claim internally from AEW was that Matthews deal would have needed to be extended quite a while back, which is something that Ibou alluded to. It was not specified to Fightful if this was a new contract, or option years being picked up. At one point there was internal discussion that AEW did have option years on Matthews. Those that we spoke to believe that whether he was re-signed or option years picked up, it would have been decided a while back.
Black’s is even more confusing, as he signed with AEW in the Summer of 2021. There was public debate over the length of his contract quite a while back, when Tony Khan said publicly in 2022 that he had “nearly five years left” on Malakai’s deal. Later that year, we’d reported there was a conditional aspect of it that could reduce the amount of time Malakai was there. Those in the company are of the belief that Black’s deal goes towards the end of the year, and at one point there were two option years applied. We haven’t confirmed that is still the case, but Khan is on record saying in 2022 that Malakai has “almost five years left” on his deal.
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