Neville, Cody Rhodes and the Risks, Rewards of Betting on Yourself Without WWE

Neville is poised to spread his wings after climbing out from under the WWE umbrella.

If he indeed walks away from the biggest pro wrestling company in the world, he has to hope for the kind of post-WWE career Cody Rhodes has had. Tired of banging his head on the wall with Vince McMahon's promotion, Rhodes ventured off elsewhere.

He has since become Ring of Honor world champion, battled with the likes of Kurt Angle and Kazuchika Okada, and wrestled everywhere from a California middle school to the Tokyo Dome.

There is no safety net awaiting wrestlers who leap away from WWE, but there is freedom and opportunity out there to be had. Rhodes bet on himself and won. Neville looks to be close to doing the same.

Figure Four Online's Joseph Currier reported on Oct. 10: "Sources confirmed to us that Neville walked out before Raw on Monday and appeared to have quit the promotion, though WWE has officially denied that he's quit."

All signs point to him being gone. Neville has not on appeared on WWE TV since his reported walkout, and WWE wiped him from the 205 Live intro video, as Sean Rueter of Cageside Seats pointed out.

Credit: WWE.com

The King of the Cruiserweights would be far from the first Superstar to walk away from WWE in the recent past, though.

Frustrations have inspired several exits. The lure of doing things one's way is apparently inspiring big career moves.

NXT's CJ Parker came to terms with WWE on his release in 2015. Ryback did the same the next year. Jack Swagger left in March. Austin Aries parted ways with the company in July. 

Nia Jax could be next. She's currently on a leave of absence, which may have begun in response to a disagreement about a match outcome. 

Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated reported: "Jax balked at the idea of losing clean to Sasha Banks at TLC. She called her cousin, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, to ask for his advice, and Johnson encouraged her to walk away if she was unhappy."

A trend is growing.

The underused and discontented aren't satisfied with sticking around with the sports entertainment giant. More and more wrestlers are taking their chances in the world outside WWE.

Companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and United Kingdom promotions like Progress and RevPro offer these grapplers an alternative. And guys like Rhodes and Swagger have left the comfort of WWE to explore those options despite the uncertainty that comes with that move.

Write Your Own Story

WWE Superstars have input into how their characters are portrayed. They can request certain matchups. But ultimately, McMahon and the WWE brass decide which road these wrestlers take.

If the company wants two hard-hitting bruisers like Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson to deliver testicle-centered humor and call everyone "nerds," then that's how things will go. That's not how things work for wrestling's free agents. 

Rhodes is the perfect example of how powerful creative freedom can be.

With WWE, he was asked to play Stardust, a face-painted, cosmos-obsessed cartoon villain that was a play on his brother's Goldust persona. The former intercontinental champ wasn't happy with that role, as he revealed on The Ric Flair Show (h/t Wrestling Inc's William Windsor for the transcription).

"Goldust is Dustin's character, so to be like a light version of him was probably a career nightmare and just [a] terrible idea," he said.

Rhodes has a different vision of his persona and has been able to make that a reality after leaving WWE. He has ditched the face paint and the star-adorned jumpsuit. The ROH champ is now a suit-wearing, slick-talking braggart and Bullet Club member who wants everyone to kiss his ring.

He looks like he's having a blast in his current role, which has to make some WWE stars jealous.

Should Neville follow Rhodes' lead, he could be as comical or serious as he wanted. He could be a killer or an underdog. He'd no longer have a team of writers working on which words he'll say each night.

Build Your Brand, Find Your Voice 

Parker, who now wrestles as Juice Robinson, was a low-card member of NXT. He rarely won. He wasn't a priority when it came time to deciding who feuded with who or what prospects would be on the TakeOver card.

WWE had its own evaluation of his ceiling. His opinion differed. 

Credit: WWE.com

Robinson traveled to Japan and has since grown as a performer with NJPW. The comic relief hippy guy is now a compelling midcard title contender. He's had the best matches of his career in the past year and been able to work with top talent like Kenny Omega. 

That's worlds away from what he was doing with WWE.

Since leaving NXT, Robinson's stock has risen. He's a more respected performer and has tons more buzz to boast about. That wouldn't have happened without testing the waters beyond WWE.

Drew McInytre upped his stock outside of WWE. The current NXT champ made himself into a scorching hot free agent by thriving at Impact Wrestling, Evolve and the UK. He was a transformed man when he re-signed with WWE this year.

That's got to be mighty appealing for the struggling WWE Superstars who are given minimal chances where they currently work. 

On Your Time

The WWE life is a grueling one.

Wrestlers go from city to city with little time off during the year. The SmackDown stars went from South America to the Midwest in the past few weeks. The Raw roster members have been in Texas, Saskatchewan, Indianapolis and the Pacific Northwest in October alone.

Dean Ambrose has wrestled over 200 matches each of the past two years, per CageMatch.net. UK indy star Travis Banks had half that workload last year, competing in 96 bouts.

The indy schedule is whatever you make it. You decide which promotions to work for, which shows to compete at, how much you want to grind. 

Last May, Rhodes posted a wrestling wishlist once his no-compete clause ran out:

The American Nightmare dreamed up a plan and went for it, item by item. Neville could do the same thing, setting out to compete in NJPW's Best of the Juniors tournament or becoming Progress world champ.

The wrestling world could become his sandbox, rather than him having to live the nomadic WWE life.

What Lies Outside of the Machine?

WWE is a multi-million dollar company with a major national TV deal and brand power like no one else in the business.

McMahon's company equals certainty. Leaving it behind is to welcome unknowns.

Some wrestlers, like Rhodes, Robinson and others, have flourished post-WWE. Others have made far less noise. Swagger, for example, hasn't dug his claws in the indy circuit to this point.

He hasn't lit up the scene with great matches the way others have. Voices of Wrestling even wondered aloud if Swagger (now going by Jack Hager) has been historically disappointing:

Ryback has made more noise with his podcast than his post-WWE run. He recently came off a strong match against AR Fox, but his brand hasn't risen the way McIntyre's did, and he hasn't gotten the exposure Rhodes has having not worked for Impact Wrestling or NJPW.

There are no guarantees in the indies. 

WWE offers a steady paycheck, while if a free agent wrestler doesn't get booked, they don't get paid. WWE offers a powerful platform. Outside of it, grapplers have to market themselves and look for creative ways to generate buzz.

There's clearly a trade-off Neville will have to consider when contemplating walking out. But there are enough examples of wrestlers finding prosperous new homes after WWE to make banking on one's self well worth it.