WWE News: WWE Was Planning On Offering A Huge Raise To Popular Superstar Before His Release Request

Over the last half a year, there have been a number of WWE superstars requesting their release from the company. Some have been granted and allowed to leave while others are to remain in place for the remainder of their contracts. One superstar who was granted his release is Shawn Spears, formerly known as Tye Dillinger, and it seems as if big money would have come his way if he had stayed.

Dillinger was a big name during his time in NXT, and he had grown huge as far as popularity goes. His “10” gimmick was something that the fans absolutely loved, and he worked it perfectly to get the very most out of it.

Fans kept hoping for him to get called up to the main roster and once that eventually happened, he never really went anywhere else. Dillinger was lost in the mid-card shuffle of numerous other superstars and oftentimes disappeared from WWE television for weeks at a time.

Along with not getting a decent push and suffering a hand injury that kept him out of action for a number of months, Tye Dillinger eventually asked for his release from WWE in February of this year. A couple of weeks later, he was granted his release and officially became a free agent.

Now, Dillinger/Spears is revealing that he turned down some big money being offered to him so that he could leave.

Shawn Spears was a recent guest on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness, and he spoke on a number of topics, including injuries, his time in NXT/WWE, and his love of wrestling. As transcribed by Wrestling Inc., he also spoke quite candidly about his release request and it being granted by WWE.

Despite saying it was the “hardest decision” he ever had to make in walking away from WWE, he knew it was what he needed to do. Upon choosing to request his release, he said that was when WWE came to him and said they were prepared to offer him a lot of money in a huge raise.

“I just said to Talent Relations at the time that I needed to go and they said, ‘well, we’re about to offer you a pretty substantial raise.’ Now, I am by no means a millionaire. I’m not even close. I’ve been very lucky. I have everything I could possibly need and I wouldn’t have that without WWE. But for me, personally, it wasn’t about the money, so I didn’t even let him get the offer out of his mouth. Later I found out what it was, a couple of weeks later, but I just said, ‘it wouldn’t change anything tomorrow morning when I wake up – I’m still going to feel the same way that I do right now and the way I’ve felt for the last six months.”

After being released by WWE, Tye Dillinger announced he would be going back to his old ring name of Shawn Spears. He has begun accepting independent bookings, which he said will begin as of May 31, and that is likely due to how his old WWE contract was drawn up.

There have been rumors that Spears was going to sign with All Elite Wrestling, but there has been no confirmation on that at all. Sure, it’s possible to happen in the future, but he has not signed with them as of this writing.