Dean Ambrose leaving WWE?

[smarkmouth]

According to a new report from Wade Keller of PWTorch.com, who allegedly verified the story through three independent sources, Dean Ambrose will be finishing up with WWE when his contract expires in April. The 33-year-old star informed management, including Vince McMahon, of his decision to leave this weekend at the Royal Rumble.

Ambrose has been reportedly â??frustrated with the creative direction of his characterâ? for quite awhile now, and recently â??reached a breaking pointâ?. With his contract coming due he was recently offered a new deal that included a pay raise, but has opted not to renew as money isnâ??t the problem he has with sticking around.

Full article; https://www.prowrestling.com/report-dean-ambrose-leaving-wwe/

If true, wow. Departure rumours are a dime a dozen right now, but Keller's a good source. If creative direction is important to Ambrose, then I'm not surprised he's unfulfilled in his current role. Big if true.

[ShinChan]

He's an underutilised talent. Can't blame him. The way his heel turn was executed at such a moment, he should have been Ciampa like heel receiving mad heat. Heck, he would surely if it all happened in NXT. There's so depth to The Shield and still his heel turn was more about the city's smell than what it should have been. Ciampa and Gargano didn't have as deep history but NXT made full use of it and made Ciampa the top heel. I didn't think that Ciampa will be a long term NXT Champion while both of them worked wonders as a tag team. At a time where NXT is full of potential, Ciampa has been at the top which makes it even more impressive and shows how NXT can make stars.

Except those promos involving city smells, Ambrose has been delivering good promos and I still remember his promo battles with Cena. He can do it as he has shown by being better than both of his mates at talking. Wastage of talent in nutshell.

[Slyfox696]

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I have never understood the appeal of Dean Ambrose. His promos are rarely better than decent, his matches are jealous of his promos. Losing Ambrose will not be losing much, in my opinion.

[Y 2 Jake]

He's been God-awful for a while now. He's lazy and it shows. You'd have to figure WWE would invest more heavily in him if he put forth some effort once in a while.

He even managed to drag Seth Rollins down to his level.

[ABMorales787]

Really dug his promos during his WWE title run which gave some glimpses to how good he could be if properly motivated. Which was really the case with the guy most the time. It really felt like the company always had him going uphill on accident. Most notably with the Brock Lesnar angle. I can get why some people dislike him because when he feels unmotivated, it's very noticable with him and it has been very noticable since just after that match with The Miz on New Year's when he won the Intercontinental title. Maybe greener pastures can bring out the better side of him.

[Jack-Hammer]

I've read that Ambrose reportedly "hates hokey shit" and that does describe a lot of what he's been doing for much of his WWE run. We all know that Vince, on the other hand, loves hokey shit and turned Ambrose from the badass heel he looked like he was on his way to becoming into essentially another chicken shit heel who blames the crowd for everything. It's a character that often works, but I get why Ambrose is frustrated, even if he has been offered a new deal with, reportedly, a significant pay raise. Vince can often be unwilling to work with talent when it comes to the creative direction of their character, he believes he knows better than everyone and it's ultimately down to what he wants and I've no doubt that can wear a person down at times no matter what.

On the other hand, I can't feel too badly for him considering Ambrose has been one of the consistently biggest stars in WWE the entire time he's been there. He's been the subject of constant pushes resulting in WWE Championship, IC Championship, US Championship & Tag Team Championship runs, he's been involved in some of the top feuds in the company and made some significant money doing it.

Ambrose is only 33 years old, so don't be at all surprised to see him pop up in AEW. It's always possible he could wind up back in WWE before too long with a new deal that gives him some creative say so; after all, Vince doesn't seem to want to lose anybody and wants to sign as many good and/or significant talents as he can to keep them from working elsewhere.

[Sufferin' Succotash]

Meh... Never understood the big deal about Ambrose. I never even noticed he was gone when off injured and I doubt I'll notice he's gone once he leaves.

[Spidey]

Sometimes a guy just doesn't fit the mold and that's what Ambrose is to me in WWE. I see it working out for both parties if he leaves. Can't imagine less hokeyness over in AEW but then again I can't imagine anything since it's an untested, still kinda being conceptualized, promotion.

I had a feeling we were coming to the end when he came out with a gasmasked posse.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

He's an underutilised talent. Can't blame him. The way his heel turn was executed at such a moment, he should have been Ciampa like heel receiving mad heat. Heck, he would surely if it all happened in NXT. There's so depth to The Shield and still his heel turn was more about the city's smell than what it should have been. Ciampa and Gargano didn't have as deep history but NXT made full use of it and made Ciampa the top heel. I didn't think that Ciampa will be a long term NXT Champion while both of them worked wonders as a tag team. At a time where NXT is full of potential, Ciampa has been at the top which makes it even more impressive and shows how NXT can make stars.

Except those promos involving city smells, Ambrose has been delivering good promos and I still remember his promo battles with Cena. He can do it as he has shown by being better than both of his mates at talking. Wastage of talent in nutshell.

This sums it up. Ambrose is very talented, but when Creative doesn't give you anything, there's nothing you can do. I'd be surprised if he leaves, but I don't know if I blame him.

[OYDK]

That's cool. I'm a fan of Ambrose and there have been flashes of brilliance from him over the years that tell me that, with the proper character, he can be something unique if properly motivated. I'm not going to lie, I've pretty much hated his gimmick since his first feud with Rollins ended. You can just tell that this guy is made for a Roddy Piper/Stone Cold style character but they decided to stick him with this goofy-ass caricature of what a 4 year old thinks a lunatic is. Then when he turned, they gave him the most boring, generalized heel character they could think of. I don't really blame Ambrose for being unmotivated but, like Orton, it's really easy to tell when he's phoning it in and it seems like he has been for a few years now. A motivated Ambrose has always been extremely over and if they let him be what he wants to be as a character, I can see him being a great pick-up for another company.

Than again, this is all rumors at this point and I say there's about a 60% chance this is all bullshit anyway.

[jmt225]

I'm very conflicted about my feelings towards Ambrose.

On one hand, I used to be a pretty big fan of his. When he was Jon Moxley on the independent scene, I thought he was terrific and one of the best pro wrestlers in the World charisma/promo wise. Then in the Shield, I thought he played his role perfectly and once they broke up, he had a tremendous feud with Rollins and I was impressed how he consistently remained one of the most over babyfaces in the company.

Then he became WWE Champion on Smackdown and I just didn't think he was living up to his potential. During that run, he had an abysmal appearance on Steve Austin's podcast and not long after, dropped the belt and got injured.

Since coming back from injury, Dean has been absolutely atrocious and one of the worst things about WWE programming. If he wants to say it was all because of the writing, I'm willing to take his word for it and see how he does someplace else, whether it's in AEW or Impact.

So I'm going to give Dean one more chance and keep an open mind whenever I see him again on another platform. Good for him to stand up for himself like this, and I truly hope it works out. If it doesn't though, then it just goes to show that HE was the problem all along, not WWE.

[smarkmouth]

From wwe.com; Dean Ambrose (Jonathan Good) will not be renewing his contract with WWE when it expires in April.

We are grateful and appreciative of all that Dean has given to WWE and our fans. We wish him well and hope that one day Dean will return to WWE.
The source of this certainly muddies the waters. If this is a work, then it's a work. If it's not, then this article is a point of no return for Dean now.

Also, any fan who chants Dean at Renee Young can pick off in advance.

[Yaz]

The only time I ever enjoyed Ambrose was when he was doing the hokey shit he claims to hate. He won't be missed on the roster, as he is currently in a place where he can easily be replaced. I know WWE had some missteps with him, mostly the recent heel turn that become "Well I won't wrestle in [insert city] because you all smell bad." His matches always felt lazy and repetitive and he never felt truly unhinged or insane. He just occasionally did an elbow drop on a standing opponent. Or that good ol Wacky Line clothesline.

[FunKay]

Then he became WWE Champion on Smackdown and I just didn't think he was living up to his potential. During that run, he had an abysmal appearance on Steve Austin's podcast and not long after, dropped the belt and got injured.

This was about the time I turned the corner on Ambrose.

He was the most over babyface on the roster at this point, something that had organically developed over time, had people invested, and finally had the company invested in him too as champion. Then there was this appearance on Austin's podcast and it was so painfully underwhelming. I remember Austin trying to put over how good a promo he was and then asking Ambrose to demonstrate this live, and he just flopped. You could just tell Austin was really disappointed and gave him a hard time the rest of the show.

This then seemed to creep into his on-screen performances as he was horrendously overshadowed, at first at SummerSlam where he worked a perfectly servicable but wholly underwhelming programme with Dolph bleedin' Ziggler of all people for the WWE title, and then week by week by AJ Styles. It was so obvious Styles was leagues above Ambrose at this point, and having him beat Cena while Ambrose was slumming it with Dolph never put the results of their encounters in doubt. Personally I was a fan of their storyline that involved James Ellsworth (it had continuity, logic and was genuinely funny... for the most part), but based on this report, it sounds like something Ambrose would detest.

I think its maybe one of those perfect storm situations. When Ambrose was treated seriously, larger forces undercut him: Project Roman, the brand extension, the SHIELD reunion's, Lesnar's indfference to their match at Mania, Lesnar's stranglehold over the Universal title etc... So the default position was to make his character "quirky" rather than unhinged, because whne he was treated seriously, he "failed" - hence the germaphobe stuff when he frankly should've been a nasty evil bastard. Its a shame, because that character had legs, especially with the vacancy of Lesnar on the majority of shows. Alas, it isn't meant to be.

I won't shed any tears, and I look forward to seeing what he does outside the WWE framework.

[BaconBits]

I don’t think Dean has the natural charisma to be much more than he ever was at WWE. The podcast appearance kinda proved that.

Also, he was effectively a death match guy whose promos relied on swearing before coming to WWE, so what he considers to be not hokey probably isn’t going to line up with the WWE’s current product.

[Yaz]

I don’t think Dean has the natural charisma to be much more than he ever was at WWE. The podcast appearance kinda proved that.

Also, he was effectively a death match guy whose promos relied on swearing before coming to WWE, so what he considers to be not hokey probably isn’t going to line up with the WWE’s current product.

This isn't far from the truth in my experience. He could wrestle a serviceable match and by no means were his indie promos bad, but everything that made him a hot commodity was stuff that WWE would not let fly. The swearing, the over the top violence, the excessive blood. That all has a place, we've seen ECW and CZW and Big Japan carve out niches in the wrestling world by offering that, but those places were never going to be mainstream, and that is what WWE is.

It doesn't help that he is very private and reserved. I'm not saying that's bad, wanting your privacy and alone time is fine. He was never going to be a big time star like a Cena or Roman when he was so reclusive and not a fan of media appearances and such.

There is a rumor going around that the situation with Nia Monday night was the last straw for him. He didn't appreciate them having Nia interrupt him and then hit him from behind. Kind of a penis move on his part if true.

[Miko]

Never got Dean Ambrose anyway, the jacket, chewing the gum, the attitude, bad punches, looking like just about anyone on the roster would wipe him out in a fight. A bit like Mr. Kennedy, who was shite