WWE has made a lot of talent releases this year due to budget cuts and those cuts will be continuing going forward.
In April, WWE cut Samoa Joe, Iiconics, Mickie James, Chelsea Green, and others. In June, both main roster and NXT/205 Live talents were let go including Braun Strowman, Aleister Black, Ruby Riott, Fandango, Lana, Tyler Breeze, and Tony Nese. Last Saturday, Bray Wyatt was released. This past Friday, WWE cut 12 NXT talent including Bronson Reed and Bobby Fish.
Fightful Select spoke with a WWE official about the cuts. This person expressed extreme frustration and explained the line of thinking from WWE’s corporate side. The person stated, “Vince McMahon can personally put a stop to any of these” and called the cuts a collaborative effort.
The source confirmed that WWE releases are going to be a regular occurrence moving forward, but stated they personally expect 2021 to be an outlier with both the frequency and the level of talent.
The official did note the “mass releases” hadn’t been a real discussion or concern within WWE for nearly four years, which would be between the Summer of 2016 and the start of 2020.
