SquaredCircle

Tay Melo’s release request will be granted.

Ahead of the AEW Redemption pay-per-view, Tony Khan hosted his pre-pay-per-view media call, and one of the questions asked of him had to do with the status of Tay Melo.

It was reported by Bryan Alvarez of F4WOnline that Melo requested her release from AEW in 2025, but it was denied.

Khan said that Melo did request her release, but that happened after the June 6th, 2026 AEW Collision during which she and Anna Jay challenged for the AEW Women’s World Tag Team Championship. She told Khan that she wanted to step away from wrestling, and Khan said he would be granting her release.

“With Tay (Melo), also a lot of inaccurate things I saw about Tay, and to be honest, in this case, there was smoke to the fire but people were reporting the fire in the wrong place, so what does that really accomplish? And with Tay, Tay had said she wanted to step away from wrestling. She has said, ‘I love AEW and I love the people here but I wanted to step away from AEW and step away from wrestling,’ and that’s what she told me. That wasn’t in 2025. That was weeks ago at Collision after she wrestled against the Divine Dominion, and she came to me after the match, and said, ‘I would like a release,’ and I was taken aback, and we had a very nice talk. It’s far to the contrary of what I’ve seen reported about this being last year or that it’s been an ongoing thing, and I heard from Tay this week and she said she’s not putting those reports out and it really bothered her, and we haven’t had an unpleasant conversation ever. I’ve always had a very good relationship with Tay, and she has asked about stepping away recently. It hasn’t been a long thing and also, I haven’t kept her here. Since that talk, I haven’t brought her back, booked her, and I am gonna give Tay that release.”

Melo first began appearing for AEW in 2020 after her release from WWE.

There's also been a rumor going around that Sammy Guevara is on his way out, but Tony Khan disputed that. The main quote being:

“Sammy (Guevara), I thought it was unusual that people said there was a change in Sammy’s status because nothing has changed. Sammy’s done well. He’s wrestling in Ring of Honor more often. He’s done some good things in AEW and he’s one-half of the ROH World Tag Team Champions — had appeared in AEW with L.F.I… As I understand it, when Sammy changed his bio, I don’t think Sammy ever had AEW in the bio in the first place so I don’t think it was any negative change and I got a nice message from Sammy saying he wasn’t trying to do anything bad and he loves AEW, and I believe that, and Sammy has been a good wrestler for us in AEW and ROH. He’s a great talent and a very good person, so I don’t think he meant to do anything, and it seemed like people jumped on him for something he didn’t even do. Certainly just messing around with the Twitter bio. It’s pretty amazing how people would jump to conclusions but also jump on him, and in my opinion, in this case, probably unfairly…”