When AEW first started, it shook the entire wrestling industry. It was a promotion with backing from billionaire owners of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. Lots of WWE wrestlers jumped ship to AEW in its first few years.
Stars like Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley were the first ones to make this move. In recent years, AEW has become more picky about signing ex-WWE wrestlers, and while it still happens every now and then, there are some wrestlers that fans would just never get to see work for Tony Khan.
As with anything else in wrestling, we should never say never, but for the following stars we feel the WWE roots are just too strong to pull them over to the AEW side.
AJ Styles
AEW fans were already fantasy booking AJ Styles’ run in the promotion after his Royal Rumble match against Gunther. However, The Phenomenal One has made it clear that he’s not going to sign with any other promotion. Styles has already signed a new deal with WWE, and is truly done with any in-ring competition.
Braun Strowman
Most fans considered Braun Strowman to be a WWE lifer. Even the star himself saw himself working for WWE until the end of his career. That’s why everyone was surprised when WWE let him go in 2021.
This was shortly after he became the Universal Champion in the main event of WrestleMania, defeating Goldberg. Strowman would later return to the company again in 2022, but this run didn’t see him win another World Championship. He was released from WWE again in 2025, and now the wrestler considers himself semi-retired.
Cody Rhodes
Cody Rhodes was one of the stars who helped create All Elite Wrestling. For many years, he even held an Executive Vice President position in the company. But around late 2021, the AEW fans started turning on Rhodes. They wanted him to turn heel, but Rhodes was adamant about being the good guy. This led to some creative differences behind the scenes, and Cody left AEW. His departure was one of the most shocking moments in AEW’s history.
Right now, The American Nightmare is doing incredibly well in WWE as one of its top stars. It’s highly unlikely fans will ever see him leave the company again.
John Cena
From the start of his career to the end of it, John Cena remained loyal to WWE. He was the face of WWE for over a decade before passing the reins to Roman Reigns.
Cena retired last year after his match against Gunther, and there’s practically no reason for him to work for any other company in the world.
CM Punk
CM Punk is the World Heavyweight Champion in WWE right now. Fans have gotten used to seeing him in WWE, but if you’d told anyone he’d be working for them again, they’d not have believed it. Following his departure in 2014, Punk quietly retired from the business. There were “CM Punk” chants every now and then, but The Cult of Personality didn’t return.
It was AEW that convinced him to make a comeback. Punk made his debut on the August 20, 2021, edition of AEW Rampage. However, in just 2 years, Punk left the company after multiple incidents with other wrestlers backstage.
Main image credit: IMAGO / Dreamstime
Ishaan Sharma has been following wrestling ever since he was 8. That was over a decade ago. He loves to write about this pretend sport and has worked with online publications such as Sportskeeda and TheSportster, where he shared his insights about the wrestling business.