10 More Superstars That Will Follow Dean Ambrose Out Of WWE
On The Fringe.
'The Lunatic Fringe' is off. Not so crazy after all, eh?
Assumed lifer Dean Ambrose has - as of writing - handed in his WWE notice, unmoved by the dream many of his friends and peers have been sold and perhaps driven by much of the psychosis expressed in a revealing edition of 'Chronicle'. For all he gave his mind and body to the cause, he was a man that no longer seemed bothered about pretending to love it.
Over an absorbing 59:57, the story of Ambrose's physical recovery intersected with a continued mental unravelling. This may have been massaged for the benefit of the cameras tracking his every move and a planned heel turn upon his main roster return, but the last several years of acting bananas looked to have burrowed in there at least to a degree.
His exit could reflect his recent disinterest or distrust in the product (or a gradually grafted loss of love for the group), but the timing of it naturally fosters speculation about morale within the company in what could prove to be one of the biggest years for the industry in some time.
He's not the only performer this month to express frustration in some form, and if the hanging WrestleMania sign can't masquerade as a dangled carrot, have WWE lost their biggest and best hook?
10. Chad Gable
Chad Gable has been carrying tag teams for so many years it's a wonder he hasn't succumbed to the neck and back injuries that have felled countless other talents over the years - he is utility to a fault in the bloated modern version of WWE.
At the Royal Rumble, he worked and won an undercard encounter alongside Bobby Roode against a makeshift pairing of Rezar and Scott Dawson that had limited stakes that weren't even necessary following the result.
And yet, this - this - sort of counts as him actually going somewhere.
Last year, him and partner Shelton Benjamin lost a two-out-of-three falls title match against The Usos two-nil. In 2017, him and partner Jason Jordan couldn't even get on the card.
Thanks to just how poor things can be, that wretched kickoff encounter against Drake Maverick's dregs has to be classed as progress to somebody with talent as prodigious as Gable's.
Chad's not the tallest fella, but this sort of narrative has been rendered false for much of the last decade - he's simply not somebody the company sees shining and has thus become as dull as everybody else. The world - and it's getting bigger - thankfully still awaits.