Adam Cole, himself, was surprised when he learned that his WWE contract expired.
Cole had been regarded by many as the MVP of NXT. He found plenty of success on the brand, holding the NXT Championship for over a year. While Cole had plenty of standout performances during his time with WWE, there was a big clerical error.
Soon, Cole found out his WWE contract expired and even top WWE officials weren\'t immediately aware of it. Speaking to reporters following the All Out PPV, Cole admitted that he didn\'t even know.
\"Yeah so, funny enough, believe it or not, I was also surprised. Yeah, I was under the impression that it was like six months later. So it was a surprise to me. It was a surprise to them. It was public knowledge for a lot of people that I had signed a little extension, I was in the middle of a really serious angle with Kyle O\'Reilly, which was very important to me. He\'s one of my best friends in the entire world. Then after that is when stuff kind of opened up for me, but very surprising to me. It was just as surprising to me.\"
Adam Cole signed a brief extension with WWE to finish his feud with Kyle O\'Reilly. Once the extension was over, Cole became a free agent. On Sept. 5, he made his debut for AEW on the All Out PPV. Cole aligned himself with The Elite before being cleared out of the ring by Bryan Danielson, who also made his AEW debut.
