To no one’s surprise, former AEW star Powerhouse Hobbs made his WWE debut yesterday during the Royal Rumble. Reports of Hobbs leaving for AEW for WWE had been making the rounds for weeks and was all but confirmed after AEW removed his profile from their roster page earlier in January.
At the time, it was reported that Hobbs was offered a lucrative deal by AEW to stay but he declined and decided to test the waters with WWE instead. On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer offered more insight into the situation.
According to him, Hobbs was presented with a five-year contract from AEW that was said to be at a level that would have made Hobbs one of the highest paid wrestlers back in 2019, trailing only Chris Jericho. The reason for the comparison to 2019 is that wrestling salaries have escalated significantly in recent years and the money AEW offered Hobbs for the new deal was strong, but not at a level that would have put him into the top-10 salaries in the promotion.
It’s not known if WWE offered more money than AEW, however, it’s possible that they didn’t need to as the consensus opinion backstage was that Hobbs was not really interested in anything AEW was going to offer him and had pretty much made up his mind that he would become a free agent and sign with WWE. It is believed that WWE officials were also confident that they would be able to land Hobbs once he became free and clear from his AEW deal.