With roughly a week left before both contracts expire, there is still no sign of movement on new AEW deals for Anthony Bowens or Max Caster.
The deals for both former members of The Acclaimed are set to expire on October 1. Following up on his earlier reports, Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp says he has not been told that negotiations have taken place, or that new deals will or will not be offered.
Fightful first reported Caster’s expiry date in August and confirmed Bowens’ on September 1. The September report noted that Bowens’ deal had not been extended at that point and that Fightful had not learned whether talks had started, which is the same position the latest update describes. Nothing has been reported since to indicate that has changed.
Bowens and Caster signed with AEW in November 2020 and became one of the company’s most popular acts. They won the AEW World Tag Team Championship from Swerve In Our Glory at Grand Slam in September 2022, and took the AEW World Trios Championship from House of Black with Billy Gunn at All In London in 2023. The team split, reunited and split again, with the reunion proving short-lived. They were voted Most Improved in the 2022 Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards, and their 2025 program against each other was voted Worst Feud of the Year in the same awards.
Bowens has been the more visible of the two this year, working as part of The Opps alongside Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata, HOOK and Action Andretti. He has wrestled about a dozen matches in 2026, most recently on the Buy In pre-show at All In: London at Wembley Stadium on August 30, where he, Shibata, HOOK and Andretti lost to The Rascalz and Lio Rush. That match was Andretti’s first as an official member of the group after months of working alongside it.
Bowens has also been used by AEW outside the ring, appearing at red carpet events, premieres and San Diego Comic-Con on the company’s behalf. He has been openly gay throughout his run and has been one of the most prominent LGBTQ wrestlers on a major roster during that time.
Caster has not wrestled on AEW television since December, when he appeared in the Dynamite Diamond Ring Battle Royal on the December 17 Holiday Bash episode from Manchester, England. He began a “Best Wrestler Alive” storyline on television after the split with Bowens, but has been absent from programming through 2026, and there have reportedly been no creative plans for him. He has taken independent bookings in the meantime, wrestling regularly away from AEW while his deal ran down.
Whether either man re-signs remains to be seen. Bowens had interest in 2019 as Fightful reported that WWE had planned to sign him, and that he ended up in AEW after someone involved in that process did not show up. Whether WWE would have interest now is unknown, and neither Bowens nor Caster has commented publicly on their contract status.
The Acclaimed’s run was built on Caster’s freestyle entrance raps and the scissoring gesture that became a crowd staple, and the tag title win came in front of a New York crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium in September 2022. The trios reign with Gunn followed at Wembley the next year, in front of the largest paid crowd in AEW history.
AEW has not commented on either contract. If neither deal is extended, both men would become free agents on the same day.
