Last night’s AEW: Dynamite featured a show closing angle involving The Elite and Blackpool Combat Club, The Elite and Eddie Kingston, oh, and The Elite and Will Ospreay. If you couldn’t tell, the main event picture on Wednesday nights solidly seems to revolve around all things The Elite. That honor is not unearned as the remaining members of the stable are the reason the company even exists, they put the E in AEW, after all. So, it is somewhat surprising that the remaining men in the group do not appear to have put pen to paper in regard to new contracts with the promotion.
Fightful is reporting that while The Young Bucks, Hangman Page, and Kenny Omega have come close to agreeing to a new deal nothing substantive has come to fruition, which has been the case for several months now. With that said, there are many backstage that believe Tony Khan will retain all four men on “significant money increases,” despite issues that exist in the locker room with CM Punk, and Ace Steel.
On that front, it does not appear any new ground has been made when it comes to putting the bad blood between Punk and The Elite behind them. Just today, news broke that Punk was involved in an AEW-approved interview with ESPN where some of his comments may reopen old wounds, or make existing wounds worse. It should be noted that the comments in question are second-hand, at this point, and no one outside of Punk and Raimondi seems to know the full extent of the conversation.
All four members of The Elite are represented by legendary pro wrestling power agent Barry Bloom, and it is not totally clear when their contracts expire. It is possible that the company extends their contracts beyond their initial end date to compensate for time spent away from the ring due to injury. If they do become available, it sounds like there is interest from WWE in signing their competition’s co-founders, although they are not legally allowed to initiate those conversations while they are under contract to AEW.