8 Biggest Talent Exoduses In Wrestling History
Few things change a company's fortunes quite like a sudden outflow of talent.
TNA currently find themselves in the midst of one of the biggest states of upheaval in the company's history. New owners Anthem have been ruthless in cutting costs ahead of their new era, and the past few days have seen some of the company's biggest stars move on to pastures new.
Wrestlers like Drew Galloway, the Hardys, and Mike Bennett have found themselves out the door. Others are sure to follow. With an influx of new talent set to move in and take their places, Impact Wrestling's roster will soon be unrecognisable compared to what it looked like a year ago.
Wrestling promotions have always been susceptible to such high turnover, however. Major talent exoduses are nothing new for the sport, and some of wrestling's boom periods were kicked off by swathes of wrestlers moving on at the same time. The Golden Era and Monday Night Wars were both characterised by big talent raids, and with WWE entering another period of major international expansion, more are surely on the horizon...
8. WWE Raid NJPW
As New Japan Pro Wrestling’s answer to WrestleMania, Wrestle Kingdom 10 was a huge success. Highlighted by a blockbuster pair of main events in AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, it took place on January 4th, 2016, and set an impossibly high bar for the rest of the wrestling calendar.
Before fans even had a chance to let the night’s action sink in, however, some earth-shattering news broke. Just a few hours after WK10, it was announced that four of NJPW’s biggest stars - AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson, and Doc Gallows - were on their way out of the company. Their destination? WWE.
It was a massive story, particularly as Nakamura and Styles were considered among the company’s cornerstones. Gallows & Anderson, meanwhile, had been a steady presence in their heavyweight tag division for years All four would leave a gaping hole on NJPW’s roster.
It proved to be a good move for all involved, however. AJ Styles has become SmackDown’s franchise player and a former WWE Champion, while Nakamura has accomplished similar feats in NXT. Gallows & Anderson, meanwhile, are the current Raw Tag Team Champions, and NJPW are doing just fine on their end.
They’d probably rather still have the quartet on their roster, but the exodus allowed them to build new stars in Kenny Omega and Tetsuya Naito throughout 2016, and business has barely wavered.