Which release was the worst?
Luke Owen counts down every WWE wrestler released in 2021 and where they are now.
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Luke Owen counts down every WWE wrestler released in 2021 and where they are now.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Someone in the office, I won't say who, cough Andy Cough, suggested that WWE released
00:05so many names this year that I should do this video in the style of the PokéRap, which
00:09I won't do. Not only does it seem slightly in poor taste, I don't know what the PokéRap
00:13is because I'm nearly 40. WWE released 80 names this year, which is more than Impact's
00:18entire roster, bringing their combined total of releases across 2020 and 2021 to nearly
00:23140, which is more than AEW's entire roster. I don't want to do this video, you probably
00:27don't want to watch it. Merry Christmas! I'm Luke Hailing from PartsFarKnown and this
00:32is every style released by WWE in 2021. Just subscribe, will you? It'll make me feel good.
00:40It's Christmas, so guys, just click it, don't be a dick.
00:43We kick the year off in January, of course, with the release of Lars Sullivan, although
00:48the exact date isn't known because the news was actually kept quiet until February. Lars
00:52Sullivan never really got going on the main roster as a result of injuries and some problematic
00:56posts from his past returning to light. He's yet to make another appearance in wrestling,
01:00but the same cannot be said for Steve Cutler, who was released on February 4th. Cutler had
01:03been taken off TV after dickhead tag partner Jackson Ryker killed the Forgotten Sons push,
01:08and since his release Cutler, now known as Steve Macklin, has debuted for Impact where
01:11he competes as part of the X Division. Go watch his match at Bound for Glory, it's
01:15really quite great. Then on March 21st, shortly after it was reported that he'd asked for
01:19his release, Andrade was released from his WWE contract. Although he hasn't had the
01:23most impactful run in All Elite Wrestling so far, let's be honest, his debut was odd,
01:27his pairings have been odd and his lack of stories is even odder. But his matches with
01:31PAC have been great, so there's that.
01:33Then we flash up the text one year later, like that bit in Avengers Endgame, as by some
01:38strange coincidence, one year to the day that the last time this happened, WWE released
01:44a bunch of names on April 15th, including Samoa Joe, who then returned to the company
01:48to win the NXT Championship before having it stripped off of him suspiciously just before
01:52the NXT 2.0 rebrand and then haven't heard from him since. The IIconics and Mickey James
01:57were also part of this round of cuts and are both now in Impact where they are the current
02:01Knockout Tag Champions and Knockouts Champion respectively, with James also producing the
02:05NWA Empowerrrrrr event which is basically the only good thing NWA has done all year.
02:10Steve Cutler's tag partner Wesley Blake was also released and recently resurfaced in Ring
02:14of Honor at Final Battle to help EC3 along with⊠another name that will come up in
02:18a little bit. Ring of Honor was also the home for Chelsea Green, who is also doing work
02:22in Impact Wrestling with her partner Matt Cardona. Kalisto was released and has had
02:26one match in AEW and was roundly chewed out by Chris Jericho and Amanda Huber over dedicating
02:31his match to the late Brodie Lee and let's not revisit that sticky situation, while Bo
02:35Dallas and Tucker have yet to show up anywhere outside of Bo being at WrestleCade. Poor old
02:39Tucker by the way, they split him away from his popular tag team with no plan of what
02:43to do with him, realised they had nothing to do with him, then released him because
02:45they had nothing to do with him. What a terrible situation.
02:48Moving into May and on the 19th, don't tell Kane, a bunch of NXT names were cut including
02:53Jessamyn Duke, Vanessa Bourne, Skylar Story, Ezra Judge, Alexander Wolfe, Kavita Devi and
02:57let's talk about Velveteen Dream I guess if we have to. Once considered to be a can't
03:03miss star out of NXT, Velveteen Dream quickly became a nightmare when alleged messages between
03:07him and a minor surfaced in 2020. They were never outright confirmed and WWE constantly
03:12denied it with Triple H saying they'd done their own internal investigations, but he
03:16did just disappear from TV and it seemed like his time in WWE was over. Sure enough
03:21it was. Of the stars released in this batch, few have done things of note. Alexander Wolfe
03:25is the exception though, returning to WXW and becoming their champion soon after his
03:29release. Hi Dan, I know you'll like to hear that. Referees Jake Clement and Drake Wurtz
03:32were also cut during this time, but the less we speak about Wurtz the better, this has
03:36already been too much. The next releases were perhaps the most shocking of the lot, because
03:40on June 2nd it was reported that WWE had cut Braun Strowman, Aleister Black, Lana, Ruby
03:45Riott, Buddy Murphy and Santana Garrett. Braun Strowman? Really? They cut Braun Strowman?
03:51Six months later and it still doesn't feel right. Strowman was as much a WWE guy as you
03:55can get. Huge, great shape, can have a match, you'd think Vince McMahon would never let
03:59him go. Sure enough, budget cuts reared their heads again and Strowman was gone, only recently
04:03showing up at Ring of Honor's final battle alongside EC3 and Wesley Blake. It was said
04:08that Strowman had a MASSIVE contract which is what led him to be part of the cut, while
04:13the others just felt like, we got nothing for you kid. Which is odd because they'd
04:16literally just re-introduced Black on the main roster for a feud with then IC Champion
04:20Big E. Famously, Black never took off his 30 day non-compete clause from his contract
04:25when he went to the main roster, so he showed up in AEW just a month later as Malakai Black
04:29and had a very good rivalry with Cody Rhodes that went a bit too long. Ruby Riott, now
04:34Ruby Soho was also AEW bound, winning the Casino Battle Royal at All Out and routinely
04:38having great matches, showcasing just how big of a missed opportunity she was in WWE.
04:43Santana Garrett has also had a few AEW appearances, while Murphy has started working for New Japan
04:47Pro Wrestling in America, recently having a match with Kazuchika Okada of all people.
04:51Lana on the other hand hasn't been seen in wrestling since.
04:54We're not done with June though, as on the 25th, WWE cut Breezango, Killian Dain, Tino
04:58Sabatelli, The Bollywood Boys, Marina Shafir, Arturo Ruas, Kurt Stallion, Ever-Rise, Tony
05:03Nese, Araya Daivari and August Grey. Do you remember earlier in the year when they said
05:07there were big plans for the Cruiserweight division? Do you remember that? It was like
05:10weeks before this round of cuts, which completely decimated the 205 Live roster, or what was
05:15left of it. The Bollywood Boys, Ruas, Stallion, Nese, Daivari and Grey were all competing
05:19on the brand before their release, and somehow 205 Live is still on the air!
05:24Oh my god, it's still on the air! How is that even possible? Odyssey Jones is on this
05:29show and let me check my notes, he's not 205 pounds!
05:33Some of these stars have shown up in AEW, with Ever-Rise being rebranded 2.0 and being
05:37paired with Daniel Garcia as part of a very entertaining act. Tony Nese was signed and
05:41challenged Sammy Guevara for the TNT title. Stallion, Grey, Shafir and Daivari have also
05:44made occasional appearances for the promotion. Killeen Day was part of NXT when he was cut,
05:48but has since been on QuizzleMania twice, the WrestleTalk Podcast twice and Board Game
05:51Club once, so I think he's doing better now than he was then.
05:54Perhaps the saddest of this round, though, was the cutting of Fandango and Tyler Breeze,
05:57two very popular and well-liked wrestlers. Breeze's release also seemed to spell the
06:01end of Up Up Down Down, which is, yeah, super sad.
06:05One thing that can be said for all of these names, although I don't agree with this
06:08sentiment, is that none of them were making WWE any form of massive money. And they certainly
06:13wouldn't release anyone that could do that, if that was until July 31st when Bray Wyatt
06:16was released, one of the true needle movers in your company. A man clearly brimming with
06:20creativity, a multiple time world champion and one of the most intriguing characters
06:24to come through the WWE pipeline in decades. A man who was selling merchandise like he
06:29was the greatest snake oil merchant in all of the land. Gone.
06:33It's insane to think that Wyatt was released at the end of July but hadn't been seen on
06:36TV since WrestleMania when he lost to Randy Orton in one of the dumbest and worst matches
06:41of the entire year. That whole feud could be summed up as, Randy Orton won all the time,
06:45then he lost to Bliss while Bray was missing for months, then he beat Bray again. Sucked.
06:50Reportedly, Bray was difficult to work with backstage and did like his creative. I f***ing
06:54wonder why!
06:55Wyatt is now working on horror movies, and remains to be seen if he'll return to wrestling
06:58again.
06:59Ric Flair was released on August 2nd, which you'd think would have to do with Dark Side
07:02of the Ring, but didn't air for another couple of months. A few days later, however,
07:07on August 6th saw WWE release another batch of NXT names, including Bronson Reed, Bobby
07:12Fish, Leon Ruff, Tyler Rust, Jake Atlas, Mercedes Martinez, Asher Hale, Giant Zanjeer, Zachariah
07:17Smith, Kona Reeves, Ari Sterling and Desmond Troy.
07:19NXT in the spring of 2021 was not what it once was, but there were still a lot of stars
07:24to possibly get invested in. People like Bronson Reed, for example. He was the North American
07:28champion and actually appeared to be in line for a main roster call-up, but was shown the
07:32door instead. Now wrestling as Jonah, he debuted for Impact in New Japan, which appeared
07:36to be his new homes. Bobby Fish quickly joined AEW, Mercedes Martinez recently returned to
07:41the indies where she wrestled Thunder Rosa and has done work with Impact, and Tyler Rust
07:44made his way to Ring of Honor before news of its closure.
07:47Other stars like Leon Ruff and Jake Atlas being released really gutted NXT, and it was
07:51this round of cuts that signalled the way for NXT 2.0's arrival. So much talent in
07:55this batch of releases, it's kind of ridiculous. You couldn't see the value in having Fish
07:59and Martinez as PC coaches down the line. Also at the end of August saw Adam Cole and
08:03Bryan Danielson leave WWE and head to AEW to debut at All Out. Not technically releases,
08:09they actually just left. Dannyson had actually left earlier in the year, he just waited for
08:13August to show up. And both have been doing great work in the company. I'll also mention
08:17now that Kyle O'Reilly and Johnny Gargano are also free agents after not re-signing
08:21with WWE. But again, not technically releases, so they don't actually technically belong
08:26on this list and I just know that if I didn't mention it someone would roast me in the comments.
08:30Make fun of me for the Tom Dolland thing, don't tell me I did something wrong on this
08:33list. Tom Dolland. Sorry, Tom Dolland?
08:39September and October passed us by and we all figured that the releases were done for
08:42the year. After all, there'd been a lot of them. But then on November 4th, 18 new names
08:48were cut from WWE, including Mia Yim, Nia Jax, Yves Marie, Karrion Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux,
08:53Dan Metalik, Lince Dorado, BFAP, Harry Smith, Oney Lorcan, Frankie Monet, Ember Moon, Trey
08:58Baxter, Jesse Kamea, Jeet Rama, Zendaya Ramire, Katrina Cortez, and Keith Lee.
09:05It was not a fun day to be a wrestling podcaster, let me tell you. What bugged most people about
09:09this list is that Nick Khan made the argument early in the year that these cuts were done
09:13because they wanted needle movers, and apparently they weren't moving any needles. But that
09:17might be because they weren't given a chance to move them. Keith Lee had had several stop
09:21start pushes, Karrion Kross LOST in his debut WHILE he was NXT Champion, then given a Zardoz
09:27gimmick, BFAP was taken out of Hit Row for no reason after, what, two weeks? Katrina
09:32Cortez was used TWO YEARS AGO to get Andrade over, and guess what, he's also gone. Mia
09:38Yim was part of Retribution, which was an utter joke, then just taken off TV for no
09:42reason. Yves Marie had one feud that was badly told, then written off TV. Trey Baxter had
09:47just 10 matches in NXT, Frankie Monet only had 6, and you hadn't even debuted Harry
09:51Smith on any shows even though he'd been signed for months. Some of the other names
09:55on this list hadn't been given a shot. Zayda Ramiro had only signed with the company THIS
09:59YEAR.
10:00The other reported reason for some of these releases were down to their vaccination status,
10:04and in the case of Frankie Monet, was she was too old at the age of 38. Because as we
10:09all know, women are basically dead once they're past 35. Sorry about that, ladies. The rest
10:13of the names were ultimately part of the NXT 2.0 rebrand. They didn't want guys or
10:17girls who came from the indie, so they're all out the door.
10:19We've reached the part of this list where the non-compete clauses of the wrestlers have
10:22not actually expired yet, so we don't have any updates to give regarding where people
10:25have gone next, but it's impossible to believe that any of them won't struggle to find work,
10:30and once again, it's also worth noting-
10:32WWE RELEASED KEITH LEE BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE HIM MOVE NEEDLES EVEN THOUGH
10:37HE'S MOVED NEEDLES EVERYWHERE ELSE HE'S BEEN. MAYBE THE PROBLEM ISN'T KEITH LEE AND IT'S
10:41YOU, YOU F***ING IDIOTS.
10:43But surely that's it now, right? Well, no. Because just two weeks later, on November
10:4719th, WWE cut Drake Maverick, Jackson Ryker, John Morrison, Shane Thorne, Tegan Nox and
10:52the rest of Hit Row.
10:53Hit Row stings a lot, as they were a group that had a lot of potential and were given
10:56a f***ing cool chance to get over on the main roster. It's easy to forget that the group
11:00had only debuted in May. They'd had three segments on Smackdown and then that was it.
11:04It was reported that Top Dollar had a lot of heat on him backstage, and once they didn't
11:08like him, the group was over because WWE saw him as the star of the group which had
11:12ISAIAH F***ING SWERVE F***ING SCOTT IN IT.
11:15Swerve has all the charisma present and ability he would want out of a top guy, and while
11:19his partners were still green, they were a tremendous package with tons of upside. Morrison
11:24was less of a surprise considering his wife had been cut two weeks earlier, Drake Maverick
11:28has now been fired two years in a row, that must sting, and Tegan Nox was another name
11:31that hadn't been given a chance when she came up to the main roster. Thrown together
11:34in a random tag team that pinned the tag champs a bunch of times that never resulted
11:38in a title match so why should I care? At least Shane Thorne is now free of the slapjack
11:41gimmick but if I was him I'd run that sucker into the ground on the indie circuit as you
11:45can get a bunch of ironic bookings from that, and Ryker's firing meant that all three
11:49of the Forgotten Sons were forgotten this year.
11:51And the last name on this list, I hope, is Jeff Hardy who was released from his WWE contract
11:56on December 9th 2021. Hardy had been sent home from a live event after he walked out
12:00on a tag match and reportedly turned down rehab help from WWE. He's recently appeared
12:04on his brother's Twitch channel saying he's doing a concert tour and a meet and greet
12:08tour. Matt has also since said that WWE jumped the gun on releasing Jeff Hardy and he's actually
12:12clean and sober. Let's hope so.
12:14So that's our long and depressing list. Click the other ones if you want to. Merry Christmas
12:19I guess. Hope we don't have to do this again next year. I've been Luke Owen, Jam That Jam.