WWE officially announced over the weekend that they'd come to terms on the release of former NXT and Raw Tag Team Champions The Authors of Pain.
We hadn't seen Akam and Rezar on TV for a quite a while because the latter was recovering from a torn biceps, but this still came as a massive surprise because AOP was widely considered to be one of the company's top teams. No reason was given for their release at the time, but it was assumed it might have something to do with Vince McMahon either becoming frustrated with them being out of action for so long or perceiving them as being injury prone, but some new details would seem to contradict that.
According to Dave Meltzer, Rezar had actually been cleared to return to the ring prior to being let go, and up until recently, the plan was for The AOP to be back as members of Seth Rollins' stable along with Murphy. Both Paul Heyman and Triple H were said to be huge fans and were big proponents for them being used in top positions in the company, so Vince's decision to release them is baffling to say the least.
We should get a better picture of what happened once Rezar and Akam are ready to fill us in, but in the meantime the inevitable speculation that they may go to AEW is already in full swing.