Every year, the WWE seems to go through what is known as “spring cleaning.” During this time, the WWE clears out their roster and releases the WWE Superstars and Divas they no longer plan to use. While the WWE tries to do this without upsetting the fans, they are also attempting to reduce expenses and increase their profits like any other business.
You may have read our report regarding WWE trying to avoid releasing talent by allowing their contracts to end. Very often, a Superstar would be released at that point, but not fired officially. It seems like the bulk of the Superstars released this week were under contract for a long time, and their contracts were simply allowed to come to an end.
The names on this year’s list make total sense to release, mainly because they have been used either sparingly or not at all.
Here is a list of the talent released so far:
Teddy Long Curt Hawkins Yoshi Tatsu Camacho Brodus Clay Evan Bourne Drew McIntyre Jinder Mahal Aksana Referee Marc Harris
Most of these folks have not worked for the WWE in quite some time. Tatsu and Hawkins were relegated to WWE Superstars or Main Event, and live events, of course. Hawkins had a period when he was on TV a little over a year ago, but after his partner, Tyler Reks, left, WWE no longer needed Hawkins and he was pushed down to jobber status.
Tatsu was brought in to help WWE in their Japanese market. He did well to begin with on WWE’s revamped ECW program, but sadly, when ECW folded, there was really no room for him on RAW or SmackDown.
There are people on the list, like Camacho and Brodus Clay, who have been on the main roster, but simply did not work out. Others like Aksana were not being used much at all, and when Aksana did appear on TV, several Divas hated working with her due to how bad she was. She upset everyone a while back, when she seriously injured Naomi’s eye with a botched knee, and Naomi was forced to wear an eye patch for several weeks.
The real shocker is Evan Bourne and Drew McIntyre, since both men were able to do well in WWE. Sadly, Bourne got hurt about two years ago and stopped wrestling on TV. WWE pretty much kept him under contract for no reason, and it seems he was simply let go, not fired.
Drew and Jinder, however, may have been fired. Both he and Jinder Mahal were part of a comedic group in WWE known as 3MB. The trio was not bad and appeared together on WWE TV for several months.
We might ask why the WWE is going back to Spring Cleaning? The idea originally was to save money with the cuts, but WWE also expressed a desire to stop releasing popular talent to avoid any public backlash. It makes no sense for them to have a ‘Black Thursday’ as today is being called in the wrestling world if they are trying to keep the fans happy.
Needless to say, the WWE releasing talent is nothing new, and it isn’t unusual to see them cut people the fans like. What is surprising is the confusing internal debate about letting people go to save money or keeping them to please the public. Now, the word is the WWE could be set to release more talent, but we will have to wait and see.
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