A new report sheds light on the mass wave of releases to hit WWE recently.
Over the last two weeks, more than two dozen names have departed from WWE, with some being outright released and others informed that WWE would not renew their contracts. According to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, this rise in releases can be attributed to multiple reasons.
“What happened is essentially, last year, because they had basically just taken over the company and they were trying to be ‘good guys,’ so they didn’t order a lot of cuts last year, they kinda held back. So it’s kinda like a catch-up,” Meltzer said. “Developmental, they’re adding new people to developmental, the people who they’d figured aren’t gonna make it, those were the ones cut.
WWE Main Roster Cuts
“The main roster cuts, essentially it was two things. Number one, all the people who were brought up from NXT that got spots, essentially they wanted to remove a similar amount of people. They went to creative. It was creative that made the call as to who. They said ‘Who are you not planning on using? Give us X number of names.’ The number that were brought up, and additional names from SmackDown, the reason being that SmackDown at the end of this month, SmackDown is going to two hours, so therefore there is an hour less time of television, so therefore there is less time to put as many people on, so therefore there would be additional cuts on the SmackDown side.” (H/T WrestleTalk)
Amongst those released from the WWE SmackDown brand were Zelina Vega, Aleister Black, Alba Fyre, and the entire Wyatt Sicks stable. Elsewhere, Andre Chase, Tyra Mae Steele, Luca Crusifino and others departed from WWE’s development system. Kairi Sane, who WWE had heavily involved in the ongoing storyline between her long-time friends IYO SKY and Asuka, also left. The New Day’s Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston reportedly reached a mutual agreement to exit the company after turning down a pay cut.
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