Over the last few years, Samantha Irvin has become popular in the wrestling community. She’s not a wrestler, but some would say she’s still more popular than many talents. Her announcing skills have earned her fans’ respect, and considering how she made certain moments, such as Cody Rhodes winning at WrestleMania 40, feel so majestic, fans were upset when she announced she’d left her job at WWE.
Some truly talented ring announcers have become legendary in the wrestling industry because of their epic work.
Ever since Irvin announced her departure, a ton of stories and rumors have been posted surrounding the situation. Here’s everything fans should know about Samantha leaving WWE.
Samantha Irvin Is Likely Not Going To All Elite Wrestling
Ricochet Denied These Rumors
One of the questions fans had after Samantha Irvin announced her resignation was what was next for her. AEW seemed like the most obvious choice because Samantha is a great announcer, and Ricochet (her fiancé) also works for Tony Khan’s company today. Fightful did say that their sources told them AEW would likely try to offer her a job, but it doesn’t seem like Samantha would be interested, because Ricochet shut down these speculations pretty quickly on Twitter.
Samantha Irvin Reportedly Wants To Focus More On Her Music Career
Samantha Has Released Music In The Past
Most fans know Samantha Irvin because of her announcer job at WWE, but she’s also a musician. She participated in season 10 of America’s Got Talent and made it to the semi-finals.
Samantha has also released music under her real name, Samantha Johnson. Following her WWE departure, Samantha’s Twitter bio describes her as an “artist” which likely gives away where she is headed in the future. This was also the main reason why Samantha resigned from WWE, according to Wrestling Observer Radio. Meltzer said that Samantha wanted to focus on “some outside projects” which likely meant making more music, and she and WWE couldn’t agree on a mutually beneficial plan.
“She’s got some outside projects she wants to do, apparently couldn’t come to terms with how it worked with WWE and off she goes. She’s actually been thinking about it for a year….She wants to get more involved with her music. It was just something she had been talking about for a long, long time and finally pulled the trigger on it…It’s not like planning on going to AEW, not saying 100 per cent that she won’t go. Ricochet actually tweeted that she’s not going and it’s not her intention to go there.” (H/T Figure Four Online)
Samantha Irvin’s WWE Departure Wasn’t Sudden
Gave WWE A Notice Months Before
When Samantha Irvin posted that she was leaving WWE, fans were shocked. Even people within WWE were caught off guard by this news, according to Fightful Select. A lot of people in WWE weren’t aware that Irvin would leave the company, and only “a very tiny group… were aware prior to yesterday the departure was likely coming.”
PWInsider reported that Irvin informed WWE of her departure hours before Raw, but this isn’t true. Irvin took to Twitter and made this correction. She gave them a notice months before. Before this Tweet, Samantha received criticism from many fans who called her unprofessional.
Samantha Irvin Reportedly Doesn’t Have A Non-Compete Clause Agreement
Samantha Is Theoretically Free To Work Anywhere Now
Unlike WWE wrestlers, who are classified as “independent contractors”, other staff work there as employees and their non-compete clauses also look different, or at least that used to be the case in the past. Remember when Renee Paquette resigned from her broadcasting duties in WWE? She couldn’t work for AEW right away because she had a one-year non-compete clause.
In Samantha’s case, PWInsider reports, that there is no non-compete. This should mean that she’s now allowed to work in All Elite Wrestling if she wants to, but since there are currently no rumors about that, this probably isn’t the case.
