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It's official. Dean Ambrose has left the building and has now left WWE as well. He said his farewell to the WWE Universe after RAW went off the air and as expected, WrestleMania is over and Ambrose's contract is likely to be up sometime around this week.
There's no more Lunatic Fringe in WWE. He didn't exactly go out in the best way, with Bobby Lashley sending him through a table (while also telling him that he'd take care of his wife).
There were better ways for Ambrose to go out, but he essentially spent his last couple of months being a glorified enhancement talent, or a "jobber to the stars" as they call it. He did have his final moment with The Shield, but the way he went out wasn't ideal.
We're sure that WWE and even Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns did all they could to convince him to stay, but he was determined that he had to leave. Here's how they could have made him stay.
#5. Not constantly involving Renee Young in his storylines
For those who don't know, Dean Ambrose is generally a very private person. It's quite obvious from his approach, character outside of WWE and the fact that he has zero social media presence.
Renee Young has stated that he hated all of it, and he likely wasn't a fan of WWE acknowledging their relationship and eventual marriage on TV. They first did it around late 2016-early 2017, and when he turned heel, Renee Young was constantly put in a tricky spot, being interrogated by Michael Cole and Corey Graves.
Plus, Lashley saying that he would "take care of his wife" and Joe taking shots at him towards Renee Young as well certainly wouldn't have made him happy, even if he approved of it upfront.
#4. Not turn him heel
While the idea of Dean Ambrose's heel turn was good on paper, it wasn't well executed at all. The payoff match at TLC was even worse and Seth Rollins revealed that both Ambrose and himself were dead set against the heel turn. He said:
The way that affected Ambrose, that wasn’t really his best look. No one wanted to see us fight each other, we had been through that, it didn’t feel good. I was upset, he was clearly upset and people didn’t want to see it, they wanted to see us be brothers and care about each other.
Rollins is well aware of why it drove Ambrose to leave and how creatively frustrating it was. In hindsight, it's understandable why they were completely against it. Ambrose didn't even seem to give everything that they had and the way it was written didn't help him either.
#3. Royal Rumble win
In all probability, if Roman Reigns hadn't gotten leukaemia again, there's a high chance that he would have been facing Dean Ambrose for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that was the original plan anyway. Had that come to fruition, you can guarantee that Ambrose would have likely won the Royal Rumble instead of Seth Rollins and that itself would have helped him big time.
After all, a Royal Rumble win is one of the most prestigious things that a WWE superstar can add to his or her resume. Had he won the Rumble, it would have led to the obvious WrestleMania world title clash and there's quite a high chance that Ambrose would have re-signed prior to that.
It was just shortly after the Royal Rumble where WWE announced that The Lunatic Fringe would not be renewing his contract.
#2. A world title win at WrestleMania
Had the Roman Reigns situation still played out and Ambrose didn't turn heel, there's a very high chance that he would have been pencilled in to win the Royal Rumble and challenge for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania.
Now, we all know what happened the last time Brock Lesnar and Dean Ambrose met at the Showcase of the Immortals. It was supposed to be a big street fight that could have made Ambrose an even bigger star, but due to Lesnar not wanting to take any major bumps (as he had a UFC fight prepared 4 months later), he refused to do anything that Ambrose pitched and it turned out to be a relatively flat 12-minute match with a terrible finish.
However, can you imagine if Dean Ambrose faced Brock Lesnar again at WrestleMania 35 and got his revenge? It would have guaranteed that he would sign another contract.
Plus, it would be his second world title.
#1. Creative control
For many WWE superstars, it can be frustrating when there's nothing going on creatively, but even more frustrating when you're involved in a storyline and it just isn't going your way. As we mentioned, the fact that Dean Ambrose didn't want to turn heel and they did it anyway would have been a big source of frustration.
The way the entire storyline played out and the payoff at TLC made him look bad, even though he walked out with the Intercontinental Championship. He lost it in a month and WWE did nothing creatively to make him want to stay.
We understand that creative control is a privilege that few legends have, but if they were to give Ambrose creative control to some extent, he would have undoubtedly been happier. It's not like he would politick to push himself like the older days.
