10 Wrestlers Who Will Change The Business Over The Next 10 Years
7. Adam Cole
FTR were always fated to leave WWE. They were a southern-style tag team toiling in a promotion that hates southerners and tag teams.
Jon Moxley, Brodie Lee, Shawn Spears: all were dissatisfied with their careers and sought to rebuild them in AEW with its dual appeal of legit money and creative expression. Moxley in particular quite fittingly heralded a paradigm shift - he had been a top star in WWE, and a former World Champion - but as yet, no WWE star in the midst of the big push (or at least promoted with halfway decent creative) has left or has intended to leave.
Adam Cole is very different.
Booked as a key star, the record-setting NXT Champion is rumoured in certain circles to be AEW-bound. The veracity of these things can never be confirmed - contract information is rarely made public - but it's not much of a leap, since he has several connections in Jacksonville. His own superior, Road Dogg, actually came out and said that he's f*cked on the main roster because he doesn't look like Karrion Kross.
Say it's not Cole.
With the direction in which mainstream North American wrestling is currently trending, at some point, and it will be soon, a wrestler won't leave WWE for AEW for a top spot. They will do so because one top spot is preferable to the other - not because they feel they need to, but simply because they want to - and when that happens, it will bring into clearer focus still that AEW is legit.
The A to WWE's 1, perhaps, and not even the 2.