WWE Granted Brian Kendrick’s Release Before Harland Destroyed Him On NXT 2.0

Brian Kendrick recently surprised wrestling fans when he was announced for a match with Jon Moxley on this week’s AEW Dynamite. The news of Kendrick’s release from WWE was still very fresh. The match didn’t happen after anti-semitic comments from Kendrick’s past resurfaced online and Tony Khan pulled the plug. Many were still left to wonder how Kendrick got out of his WWE deal so quickly.

It turns out Kendrick had agreed with WWE on his release a while ago. When Kendrick was scheduled for a match against Harland in NXT, he had already been given his release. Brian had agreed to come back and finish the angle. It didn’t go as planned due to COVID-related travel issues.

Dave Meltzer discussed the Brian Kendrick situation on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio. Kendrick was already on his way out the door long before news broke that he was leaving. The travel problem caused the Harland angle to be changed, but Kendrick had already quit.

“He got his release some time ago. I mean, he had asked for his release well before that Hardland thing where he did that match. So, when he went on and did that promo and said that he was quitting, I mean, he’d already quit. They’d already approved it. But, they asked him to come back and do the match with Harland, so he agreed to come back to do that.

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So, people are going, like, ‘How could it be? It hasn’t been thirty days?’ It’s because he had actually gotten his release sometime well over that time frame ago. Came back to do the thing with Harland that he didn’t end up coming back to do. He did the angle. And then, there was a transportation issue. I had thought it was COVID because it was the week where all kinds of changes were made due to COVID, and in a sense in a roundabout way, it was, because the travel, his flight in, got cancelled due to COVID coming in. So, it was due to COVID that he wasn’t on the show, but he did not have COVID at the time. So, that was the situation there. Yeah, he was free and clear and was supposed to make his debut tonight, and it did not happen.”

Tony Khan said that AEW will look into Kendrick’s history of offensive comments. Brian Kendrick issued an apology via social media. We’ll see if Kendrick can salvage any kind of future with a company that has been paying close attention to cultural and racial sensitivity issues.

You can check out the clip below. Harland was nice enough to tweet it out yesterday to remind fans what kind of send-off he gave Brian Kendrick.

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Transcription by Ringside News