Following his WWE release earlier this year, this popular wrestler now finds himself in an unfortunate situation.
Last month, ahead of the 2nd May episode of SmackDown, 17 top stars in the promotion were released by the company. The names were either released or their expiring contracts were not renewed. Amongst the released stars were the NXT faction, Gallus (Wolfgang, Joe Coffey, and Mark Coffey).
Now, almost a month after his release, Joe Coffey opened up on his current unfortunate and ‘landlocked’ situation during his latest interview with MuscleManMalcolm.
“Just to cut a long story short, with the release and the contract, our visa goes with that. So we’re in the process of going through (the process of getting) a new visa, which hopefully won’t be too lengthy, it’s costly, but it’s going to be an investment. Unfortunately, now we have to be landlocked in the US. So it means we can’t work in the US, or get back to Europe or Japan or anything. So it’s just a bit of a waiting game.
Being an international talent with that contract comes a visa, and unfortunately the visa goes with the contract. So going through a new visa process, we cannot leave the country. Like we only had like, I think it was 30 to 60 days to leave America. To me, that’s not an option just now, because for the past two years I’ve had a missus here, and I’m going to have to split my time between Europe and the States and maybe Japan if that comes calling. So we have to kind of be landlocked just now until that visa process goes through.”
Coffey was originally a part of the NXT UK roster before moving to the main NXT roster based in the USA. The jump required the trio to get on a work visa due to their status as international talent. However, following their release last month, their visa expired, leaving them ‘landlocked’ in the country.
Similar to Gallus, former AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida is also suffering from visa issues.
Another Recently Released WWE Star Is Open To Joining AEW
Also, a part of the 2nd May departure alongside Gallus was Shotzi Blackheart. Recently, during an interview with Ariel Helwani on The Ariel Helwani Show,Shotzi Blackheart expressed her desire to join AEW.
“I love their freedom. I have a lot of friends there who are doing really awesome things. I’ve heard many stories of how Tony treats talent. So yeah, I do love that he really cares for his talent. That is super important to me.”
“And like, hot girls get to make out with each other.”
In other news: A former World Champion wants these two big WWE stars back in TNA.