The Acclaimed’s Caster and Bowens Hit Free Agency

Max Caster and Anthony Bowens, better known as The Acclaimed, are officially free agents after their AEW contracts expired. Their next destination is still unknown, but the tag team duo is now free to field offers from any promotion.

The pairing spent roughly six years in AEW, rising from mid-card comedy act to one of the company’s signature tag teams. Along the way they captured the AEW World Tag Team Championships and became known for their entrance rap, the ‘Scissor Me, Daddy’ catchphrase, and a connection with the crowd that made them one of the most consistently over acts on the roster regardless of where they sat on the card.

Losing The Acclaimed as a package deal is a notable subtraction from AEW’s tag division, which has leaned heavily on established teams to anchor Dynamite and Collision undercards. Bowens and Caster were never positioned as top-of-the-card singles stars, but their reliability as a crowd-pleasing tag act gave AEW a recognizable, merchandisable unit with a built-in identity — something that doesn’t come along often in a wrestling landscape crowded with ever-shifting factions and one-off pairings.

What happens next is the real story. Free agency for a tag team is trickier to navigate than for a singles star, since any new promotion has to want both halves of the act, and WWE in particular hasn’t historically imported outside tag teams wholesale with much frequency. That said, WWE’s tag division has had openings, and NXT has served as an on-ramp for outside talent before. NJPW, TNA, and the independent scene are all plausible landing spots as well, especially if Caster and Bowens prefer to stay together rather than pursue solo paths.

It’s also worth asking whether The Acclaimed’s run as a duo continues at all. Six years is a long time for any act to stay intact, and free agency sometimes becomes the moment two performers quietly go their separate ways. Bowens has talked in the past about ambitions beyond the tag scene, and Caster has shown range as both a comedic presence and a credible in-ring performer. Whether they look for a package deal or test the market individually will say a lot about where they see their careers heading from here.

For now, nothing is official beyond the expired contracts. But with AEW having just lost a reliable tag act and the rest of the wrestling business always hungry for proven, over talent, expect plenty of speculation about where Caster and Bowens turn up next.