Looks like I won’t be getting the Hideo Itami vs. Buddy Murphy match I was hoping for.
Hideo Itami has asked for his WWE release.
In weeks following Mike and Maria Kanellis, The Revival, and Dean Ambrose all informing WWE of their desires to leave the company, FightfulWrestling.com has learned that Hideo Itami asked for his WWE release this week. He finished up on Tuesday night’s episode of 205 Live in a losing effort to Akira Tozawa. The talk backstage was that Itami will actually be granted his release, pending a 90-day no compete clause.Fightful was told that Itami, much like the other wrestlers who had asked for a release was unsatisfied creatively.
Itami changed his twitter handle back to KENTA in recent days and sent out the following tweet late Tuesday night:THANK YOU.
— KENTA aka Lil’K (@KENTAG2S) January 30, 2019
I was surprised but not surprised by this news. After all of the injuries (to himself and others) and false starts, he seemed to finally be gaining some traction on 205 Live, but it’s 205 Live. It’s a show that, while much better than it used to be, is likely never going to be what it could have been because of the poor decisions and worse execution that plagued it from 2016 when it began until WWE finally started figuring things out in 2018.
With the independents doing well and companies like ROH, NJPW, MLW, AEW and even Impact rushing to lock up talent and apparently throwing around solid money to do so, now is the best time arguably since WCW died to be unsatisfied creatively with WWE and actually do something about it. If you have a name and the will to put the work in on the open market, why not take your chances?
And this is another reason to get so upset about WWE’s piss poor writing. I know in many ways now it doesn’t matter what they do thanks to the billions of dollars in television deals that should carry them through the next few years and then some, but what good is all the money in the world if people are so upset with their positions that they’re turning it down? Watching the product as a consumer and long time fan can be tough, but think about how terrible things must be for guys being offered six or seven figures to say no thanks, you can keep that. It’s easy to say WWE doesn’t have to care, but they should care. Things look great now, but eventually those rights deals are going to come up for negotiations again, and it’s not entirely unthinkable that we could get to a point where nobody is going to want to pay big money for something that nobody is watching.
