From the Impact Wrestling Rumor Mill: Chris Adonis quitting the company came out of the blue

What's the story?

A number of rumored Impact Wrestling departures happened over the last week with Bobby Lashley, Laurel Van Ness, and EC3 all leaving as the speculation had suggested. One departure that no-one saw coming, however, was Chris Adonis, who also quit during the most recent round of tapings in what has been reported as a total surprise for the company.

In case you didn't know

Chris Adonis was formerly known as Chris Masters and enjoyed two fairly unsuccessful stints in the WWE before finding his footing in Impact Wrestling as an enforcer for Eli Drake, even helping Drake to become Impact World Champion.

The heart of the matter

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has released more details on Chris Adonis' sudden and unexpected departure from Impact Wrestling by suggesting that it was a move that no-one within the company saw coming:

"Adonis, who was scheduled for the entire week of tapings, left after the third night and thanked everyone. They weren’t completely sure what made him make that decision as he just left on his own and it wasn’t something they knew about in advance."

It seems this is spot on and Impact had plans for the partnership of Chris Adonis and Eli Drake as Drake picked up a Tag Team Title opportunity in a Feast or Fired match, an opportunity that it seems was supposed to go to the team of Drake and Adonis. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter adds,

"LAX remains tag team champions, and they will defend against Eli Drake & Scott Steiner. Steiner was a last minute replacement for Chris Adonis, who quit the company out of nowhere in the middle of the tapings."

Again, this suggests that Scott Steiner's return to TNA was a last-minute decision made in order to replace Adonis in the tag-team storyline that Impact had planned.

What's next?

Bizarrely, despite leaving the company alongside EC3, Lashley and Van Ness, Chris Adonis has not been linked with a return to the WWE yet, although it's unclear if he'd even want to at this point given the number of lackluster runs he's had with the company.

Author's take

Chris Adonis/Masters has always struck me as someone who should be a top wrestler in whatever promotion he works for, but for one reason or another, has never quite managed to live up to his look.

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