It seems pretty clear at this point the news Dean Ambrose will be leaving WWE when his current deal expires at the end of this month is legitimate, and not a storyline.
The Grand Slam champion had an emotional reunion with his Shield brothers at Fastlane, then put over Drew McIntyre on the Mar. 25 Raw. He’s still working house shows and dark matches, but with nothing announced for him at Sunday’s WrestleMania 35, we may have seen the last of the Lunatic on television for a while - and on WWE TV for a long while.
And if that sounds weird to you, imagine how it feels to his Shield brother, Seth Rollins. They’ve been together since developmental back in Florida Championship Wrestling at the start of this decade.
Cathy Kelley asked the Architect about Dean’s exit during the first of her ‘Mania week WWE Now interviews. Seth says they haven’t always clicked outside the ring, but there’s nobody he has better chemistry with inside the squared circle. And he definitely can’t imagine life in the locker room without Ambrose:
“It breaks my heart. I get it, you know. I understand. This place can be frustrating and he’s a guy who ’s been doing it nonstop for f... shoot, 15, 16, 17 years now. And so sometimes, you just need to step away, you know, and take care of yourself. And I wish him luck obviously in whatever he wants to do, and we’re still going to be friends and brothers and I’ll love him for as long as we can, but um, he just marches to the beat of his own drum, man. He’s like a wild animal. Sometimes you just can’t put him in a cage or tame him. That’s just not how he operates.
I know how he feels about his creativity and sometimes when it pulls him in a different direction, that’s just how he’s gotta be. I never imagined the three of us working anywhere else, or not being here at the same time, unless - we’ve all been hurt or sick or whatever it is and had to take some time off. But I never imagined, you know, me and Roman here, or me and Ambrose here and Roman somewhere else, or Ambrose, or me... you know I just never saw it that way. So it’s gonna be weird to come into a locker room and he’s not there and knowing he’s not coming back anytime soon. So it certainly tugs on my heartstrings a little bit, but I support him in whatever decision he’s gonna make.”
Check out the whole interview below. The Ambrose talk starts around the ten minute mark.