WWE Let Ashante “Thee” Adonis’ Contract Expire Instead of Firing Him

Ashante “Thee” Adonis is officially done with WWE — but the way it happened is raising eyebrows. The former Hit Row member didn’t get released in the usual round of cuts. Instead, WWE quietly let his contract expire, avoiding the optics and payout that come with firing someone outright.

While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez revealed that Adonis was originally expected to be cut during WWE’s last wave of releases earlier this year. That plan reportedly changed when the company realized they could simply wait for his deal to end.

“Ashanti is gone. Yeah, the deal with the Ashanti, you remember when they were doing all those cuts three months ago? We thought he was cut then. I thought he was cut. I thought he was getting a call any day. And I guess what happened was he was going to get cut. And then they kind of realized that if they cut him, they would pay him for 90 days, which would have ended this week. But then they found out his contract ends this week. So may as well keep him around.”

Meltzer went on to explain that WWE preferred the public image of a contract expiring over announcing another firing.

“Well, I mean, the deal is, although he didn’t do much — he did nothing. No, they… it wasn’t that. It’s like why, from a publicity standpoint, you know, and from a, you know, whatever, it sounds so much better when you… his contract expires, than you fire a guy whose contract’s signed up. So they allowed the man’s contract to run out roughly the same week that if they had fired him, then they’d stop paying him, you know, with the 90 days. So it all worked out.”

He also noted that Adonis’ creative momentum had already stalled after being paired with Karmen Petrovic and then split with no follow-up storyline.

“It was essentially when they were making the list of guys or the things to do, he was on that list. And they, you know, they broke up him and Carmen Petrovic after spending all that time getting them together with no real angle. And, well, I mean, he screwed up for the couple weeks and then they broke him up and then he was pretty much done. And yeah, now he’s officially no longer with the company.”

WWE may be done with Ashante “Thee” Adonis, but he’s already made it clear he’s ready to prove himself elsewhere. The only question is which promotion will give him that shot.

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