Von Wanger was a surprising name to be released by WWE alongside several other stars.
Wagner was considered for a move to the main roster before the decision was made. He had recently been in a feud with Bron Breakker and Lexis King. He hasn’t wrestled since April 2, where he put over King.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez talked about Wanger’s release.
Alvarez: “I thought he had a lot of potential as a babyface. And I thought Von Wagner had a lot of potential, but they booked him like just an idiot. Like, yeah, it was same thing. Every time, it was Von Wagner. He gets beaten up, we’ll get this guy, you know, we’ll do a new storyline, we’ll do a series of vignettes, we’ll get everybody into the guy, they’ll cheer him, and they will beat him again. It was like over and over. It’s like they gave him nothing. And then what?”
Melzer: “The thing that surprised me is that it wasn’t that many years ago, where people were from the company we’re talking about this guy’s like, you know, future WrestleMania main event, which I didn’t see. And I never would see that you know, I mean, I just thought he doesn’t have the charisma to be at that level. So I was thinking, like, you know, well, because he’s tall and blonde. You know, it’s like, it’s not like the 80s. I mean, tall and blond isn’t isn’t enough. And as a wrestler, he was, he was passable. But I mean, as far as being a character and everything like that, the pairing with him and Robert Stone was a good pairing as babyfaces. Robert Stone was a good talker, and he had a very likable thing and stuff with the kids and everything. But yeah, every time they put him in a big match, they beat him with the idea that it’s okay because it’s gonna put people through tables, and it would have been okay, but for whatever reason…. the only thing I really know about this. One is that this was a main roster decision, even though he was not working on the main roster. He was working in an IX T. It was technically like Zion Quinn. They are main roster wrestlers, even though they never wrestled like I think Zion Quinn did in a year on the main roster. I think he did two matches. And I don’t even know what Von Wagner did. But they were considered main roster wrestlers. Therefore, they were not being used on the main roster. The decision was made to dump them. But yeah, this one, I was a little bit surprised on this one. I was actually very surprised the other ones, not at all, especially with you know, there’s all the reasons I talked about yesterday for the other ones, which VonWagner has nothing to do with those reasons. It was just essentially, they felt that he had been a main roster wrestler for a year, and they hadn’t used him, and it’s been a year, and they weren’t going to use them. And if you’re not going to use them, then you’re gonna get caught.”
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