It was reported on Tuesday that Kevin Owens' WWE contract ends sooner than originally expected. Believed to be a five-year extension that was signed in 2018, the deal was restructured during the pandemic and ends in January of 2022, as per a report by Fightful Select. It's also interesting that his extremely close friend in Sami Zayn has a WWE deal that is set to expire soon too. As always, when someone talks about Owens, they tend to also talk about Zayn.

According to a report posted by TVA Sports in April of 2019, Zayn had signed a three-year contract shortly before leaving due to injury. With some sick time added to the length of the contract, they noted he still had about two and a half years left on his current deal. That would put his deal up at the end of this calendar year. While some time might have to be adjusted based on him staying home during the first part of the pandemic, the point here is that two close friends, known as "professional wrestlers" at heart, have deals coming up around the same time.

Obviously, this news has garnered some attention as AEW seems focused on bringing in some of the best in-ring talent that is known for having tremendous matches. Owens may or may not be ready to go and based on his usage on SmackDown of late, it would be hard to blame him. Zayn is a strong heel character on WWE SmackDown, but his booking history has been up and down. It would be interesting to see if these two stars would make career decisions together. From an AEW perspective, it would be big to have both join the promotion together, if possible.

Who Will Stay?

The questions surrounding WWE these days seem to be less about who might leave and more about how few performers might actually stay. WWE is losing a lot of people and their roster appears to be thinning out rather quickly. If Owens and Zayn go, that's two more wrestlers that are considered among the better workers in the company no longer on the roster.