It’s Christmas for Rey Fenix.
That’s because the former International Champion has officially been taken off AEW’s roster page. Fightful is one of the sources that first reported on the news.
That means Rey Fenix has been released from the promotion, which was a long time coming. The 34-year-old is an AEW original who came in with his brother Penta El Zero Miedo as the Lucha Brothers.
The duo were one of the prominent figures in the tag team division. Though Fenix and Penta only won the World Tag Team titles once, they were featured weekly and had great matches against the likes of The Young Bucks, Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus, and FTR. They would also go on to form Death Triangle with PAC and win the AEW Six-Man Tag Team titles. However, Fenix was the only one of the two brothers who won a singles belt, though mostly by accident. Fenix beat Jon Moxley for the International Championship, but the latter was originally supposed to retain his belt. The current AEW World Champion was concussed during the match and called an audible to have Fenix win the belt. Fenix only kept the title for 20 days as he would eventually drop it back to Moxley.
Fast forward to July 2024 and rumors started buzzing that the Lucha Brothers weren’t planning to re-sign with AEW. Fenix’s last match on AEW television was against Tony Nese on the July 20th episode of Collision. It was reported that Tony Khan added injury time to Fenix’s contract and the former AEW star was injured a lot during his five year tenure.
Fenix has been vocal about his unhappiness with being stuck under his AEW contract. He even wrote in a now deleted tweet that, “no one stays in a place where they received inhuman treatment.” AEW never commented on the situation, but it did put the promotion in a bad light. However, when Tony Khan released Miro, Ricky Starks, and Malakai Black, all eyes were on Rey Fenix next.
Rumor has it that the two sides were still negotiating Fenix’s exit. Though the former Lucha Brothers star had a rough end in AEW, he’s one of the talents that really helped put AEW on the map. It’s expected for Fenix to jump ship to WWE. Dave Meltzer reported that WWE creative was drawing up plans for the former AEW star. It’s not confirmed when he’ll make his WWE debut, though he’s allowed to appear on WWE television instantly as Fenix doesn’t have a 90-day non-compete clause attached to his release.
Will Rey Fenix compete at WrestleMania 41? We'll find out in the next couple of weeks! It should be interesting to see if we hear about the truth on Fenix's troubled final months in AEW.