One person close to the situation said that when WWE announced the suspension, they had already decided to let him go. The key reason was that in a meeting with him when the news broke, he admitted being aware of the Phoenix police investigation and had never told the company, which is something they strongly frown on. The belief internally is that they never would have featured him so prominently, kept the cruiserweight title on him, and continued to build 205 Live around him if they had known he was the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
It was no secret he had tremendous heat, but the company also recognized his tremendous charisma. While he denied the story in a Corey Graves interview, he was thrown off the bus on a recent European tour because he was talking loudly on the phone and knocking the wrestling business while saying he was only in it because of how much money he was making. He also had talked in recent months of trying to make it in another entertainment business.