Current WWE Stars To Leave & Join AEW

AEW/WWE

Since All Elite Wrestling’s inception in 2019, fans have gotten used to seeing prominent talent swapping between WWE and AEW.

Very much reminiscent of the height of the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW in the late 1990s, the presence of two top North American wrestling companies has allowed talent to find where they best fit and seek a change of scenery should they hit a wall in either promotion, or if they unfortunately find themselves cut from their contract early.

With fans anticipating the seemingly impending arrival of The New Day (Xavier Woods & Kofi Kingston) in AEW following their WWE departures in May, as well as continued speculation regarding the future of other released talent such as Malakai Black and Kairi Sane, it’s time to take a look at which stars on the current WWE roster could potentially follow suit and become All Elite.

Here are five current WWE stars to potentially leave and join AEW.

Bayley

Along with The New Day, easily the most discussed potential new AEW signing in 2026 has been Bayley.

‘The Role Model’ has been a fixture of WWE for over a decade, and has achieved everything there is to achieve in the company: including winning a Royal Rumble Match, Money in the Bank and four WWE Women’s Championships.

Given her accomplishments in WWE many fans have called for Bayley to follow a similar path to her real-life best friend Mercedes Moné and bet on herself outside of WWE’s walls.

Whether it be a run in AEW and a reunion or feud with Moné, a first-time run in STARDOM or CMLL, or all of the above – now may be Bayley’s best chance to add to her legacy and prove her worth.

Giulia

While Bayley has seen it all and done it all in WWE, Giulia is someone who has barely scratched the surface in the company. So why is she featured on this list? Quite simply ‘The Beautiful Madness’ has not yet reached the heights many thought she would when she arrived in WWE back in 2024.

Unlike Stephanie Vaquer, who arrived in WWE at a similar time to Giulia, she has struggled to establish a connection with the audience. While her lack of English skills could have been pointed at, it’s more WWE’s booking that has made the casual audience indifferent to the Japanese star since her call-up to SmackDown.

A heel run and pairing with Kiana James seemed logical due to James being a competent mouthpiece for Giulia, but it’s been evident since the pair parted ways that the alliance was doing more harm than good, as Giulia has had a new lease on life since breaking away on her own. With Giulia also putting in a whole lot of work into improving her English, fans are still hopeful she will be allowed to turn things around in WWE.

However, with her recent two minute loss to Lash Legend fresh in the memory, fans won’t be blamed for hoping that she instead jumps ship to AEW at some point. Not only will she be able to show more of an edge when it comes to her in-ring style, but the more hardcore AEW audience as a whole may have a greater appreciation for what she brings to the table.

Ricky Saints

After being frozen out in AEW in his last year or so in the company, Ricky Saints (fka Ricky Starks) arrived in WWE with plenty of hype and expectation in early 2025. Perhaps more than any of the young talent on AEW’s roster, it appeared as if Saints was 100 percent tailor-made for WWE given his abundance of charisma, look and in-ring ability. Not to mention close friendship with WWE’s QB1 Cody Rhodes.

While his NXT run saw plenty of success – including an NXT Title win and an extremely rare triumph over Oba Femi – Saints’ time on SmackDown has seen his stock plummet quite severely. While he was pushed fairly strong out the gate as he faced off with Cody Rhodes in his first SmackDown match, before proceeding into a program over the United States Title, since losing to Trick Williams at Night of Champions Saints has been off TV.

If you’ve been wondering where Saints is, he’s been appearing exclusively in social media segments and is angling for a AAA Cruiserweight Title match against Rey Fenix. While it is of course early days for ‘Absolute’ on WWE’s main roster, this is hardly a great sign for his prospects as a future champion in the company.

Talk of an AEW return to AEW is of course premature at this point, but it’s not too difficult to foresee if Saints’ booking doesn’t change over the next year or so.

Tyler Breeze

Signed to WWE in a non-wrestling capacity, Tyler Breeze’s work in the company has been on the company’s gaming YouTube channel UpUpDownDown, alongside Xavier Woods – who as mentioned is seemingly now AEW bound.

Given how integral Woods was to UpUpDownDown it seems unlikely that Breeze will continue working on the channel without him, and there has been no new uploads in four months as of the time of writing.

With AEW having its own gaming YouTube channel – AEW Games – Tony Khan would be wise in allowing Woods to join that crew and help grow it in a similar way to UpUpDownDown.

While Woods will have some old faces to make content with such as Adam Cole, Claudio Castagnoli, Ricochet and, of course his own tag partner Kofi Kingston, bringing Breeze along with him would be the icing on the cake.

Johnny Gargano & Candice LeRae

As Tommaso Ciampa has been thriving as the Psycho Killer in AEW, his old tag team partner Johnny Gargano has been exclusively lying on a crate backstage in a depressed state.

Months have gone by without movement from Gargano, despite his wife Candice LeRae best efforts to elicit a response from him, and it’s understandable that there are question marks regarding WWE’s end game for this angle.

The way it’s been dragged out suggests that there is no end game, as there has already been plenty of opportunity for ‘Johnny Wrestling’ to re-emerge and factor into plans in a significant way – namely with Sami Zayn, who is crying out for some support in his quest for “justice” on SmackDown.

It’s unclear how long Gargano and LeRae have left on their WWE deals, but even if they were offered new contracts it’s hard to justify why they’d want to do so given their booking. A move to AEW and reunion with Ciampa, Motor City Machine Guns and many other familiar faces seems like a far better move, and something we could see in the near future.

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