Every year, WWE feels the need to release a collection of talent after WrestleMania. Despite it being the most profitable time of the year for them, they always fire at least a handful of wrestlers from the roster.
This year was a particularly nasty one and one of the most lengthy lists in quite some time. Whether that was due to TKO trying to milk as much money out of WWE to compensate for UFC's debt or because they're upset over selling less tickets for WrestleMania (despite that being a problem of WWE Creative mixed with the overwhelmingly high prices TKO is charging for these events, pricing people out of being able to afford this in a struggling economy that doesn't understand perpetual growth every quarter is impossible), someone with the ability to fire talent has decided that they need to gut the roster.
Click here for the list of main roster talent from Raw and SmackDown who have been released. This post will focus on the NXT roster and the talent who were on the developmental side of things, either appearing as competitors on WWE LFG or WWE EVOLVE—some of whom never truly had an opportunity to even try to get their career started before WWE opted to let them go.
The first of these NXT Superstars releases to be broken was Andre Chase, who came out with this statement on X:
Following Chase's release, many others were reported to be on the list of departures, primarily broken by Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp doing the legwork.
These names included:
- Dante Chen
- Tyson DuPont
- Tyriek Igwe
- Chris Island
- Tyra Mae Steele
- Sirena Linton
- Trill London
- Malik Blade
- Luca Crusifino
While some of the talent like Dante Chen have been part of the system for many years, some of them were only just recently given a chance. Tyra Mae Steele was the winner of the first season of WWE LFG to earn an NXT contract, only to be sent to EVOLVE instead, where she is still in the mix of a feud with Kali Armstrong. Luca Crusifino spent months on the sidelines and was just recently repackaged with a new gimmick on EVOLVE, losing a tag team match on this week's episode.
As with the main roster talent, we can only hope these men and women are able to find some success outside of WWE after these unfortunate releases.
Where would you like to see these wrestlers go next? Drop a comment below with your predictions and thoughts on their releases.
About The Author:
Founder of Smark Out Moment (https:/www.smarkoutmoment.com) and Fanboys Anonymous (https:/www.fanboysanonymous.com)