);
As we’ve been reporting today here on eWn, WWE released ten talents due to “budget cuts.” The names of those released include Samoa Joe, Mickie James, Billie Kay, Peyton Royce, Bo Dallas, Wesley Blake, Kalisto, Mojo Rawley, Tucker and Chelsea Green.
As you’d expect, all of the talent who were released today are under 90-day no-compete clauses. That means they won’t be able to appear for any other promotions until July 14th. );
As noted earlier, John Laurinaitis was the person making the phone calls to the talents. As you know, he recently became the new head of Talent Relations.
We wish them the best in all of their future endeavors.
Fightful.com s
Sean Ross Sapp reports
John Laurinaitis, WWE s head of talent relations, has been making the calls to talent and citing budget cuts as the reason for the WWE releases, according to sources.
Additionally, Sapp pointed out that the releases come exactly one year after numerous other superstars were released by the company, which WWE cited, at the time, as budget cuts in relation to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Matt Cardona, who performed under the ring name
Zack Ryder before being among more than a dozen wrestlers released last April, also acknowledged the two mass releases taking place on the same day, while also crediting Green, his fianceé, as a f star amid news of her release.
Some new details have been reported on the spate of WWE releases made today, including the status of no-compete clauses and who maee the calls. As reported earlier today, the company announced their releases of Samoa Joe, Mickie James, Billie Kay, Peyton Royce, Bo Dallas, Wesley Blake, Kalisto, Tucker and Chelsea Green.
According to Dave Meltzer, all the talent are under 90-day no-compete clauses and will be unable to sign with other promotions until July 14th. In addition, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reports that John Laurinaitis made the phone calls today informing talent of their releases. Laurinaitis, who was recently appointed as the new head to Talent Relation, said that the cuts were made as part of budget cuts.
WWE Drops Mickie James, Samoa Joe, More
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If you ever needed a sign that things are getting back to normal, WWE has one for you today: the return of the post-WrestleMania firing spree. Nine wrestlers have been officially released by the company today, some of whom are expected, and most of whom had their potential wasted by WWE for no good reason. Samoa Joe, Billie Kay, Peyton Royce, Mickie James, Chelsea Green, Tucker, Kalisto, Bo Dallas, and Wesley Blake are the names released by WWE today.
Samoa Joe was recently on the Raw commentary team but was dropped this week when WWE revamped it. Some were excited for a potential return to the ring for Joe, but apparently that s not the case. Peyton Royce and Billie Kay were well-liked when they were a tag team, but WWE broke up the Iiconics for no reason, then had no creative plans for either member to do afterward.
Samoa Joe, Mickie James, and others react to their WWE release
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For the second straight year, WWE released a wave of superstars on April 15. This year’s cut list included Samoa Joe, Mickie James, Tucker, and several more names.
We’ve already covered Billie Kay’s classy response to the news of her release. Now here is how some of the other released wrestlers are reacting to the news.
First up is Mickie James, with a succinct expression of gratitude:
Grateful for the memories. Grateful for the locker room. Grateful for the fans. Grateful for these little keys to my golden handcuffs. You can never expected others vision of you to be big as your own dreams. Thank you @VinceMcMahon#AlwaysBlessedAndGrateful Mickie James~Aldis (@MickieJames) April 15, 2021