WWE Summer Cleaning 2021
 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Fightful has learned the following WWE wrestlers have been released. <br><br>- Braun Strowman<br>- Aleister Black<br>- Ruby Riott<br>- Lana<br>- Santana Garrett<br>- Buddy Murphy</p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1400112103256735744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

THE FUCK?! :wtf:

:lol:

Mind you, I don't know who 90% of these people are. I'm just enjoying the asteroid coming down.

wtf @ Strowman

Everything I read about Strowman's feud with Shane sounded horrendous and like a pretty clear indicator they had no clue what to do with him anymore. Can't really have him lose much but don't want to actually push him, so he just kinda disappears for weeks/months at a time.

Still thought for sure he'd have job security.

I wonder if Braun is going to have to change professions again to pay his bills, or if he'll need a GoFundMe or Patreon to get by.

fuck WWE

None of them, other than Braun, are a shock. Even Black, given everything which happened with his wife.

However Braun is a very big shock indeed. Given his size, thought he’d have a job for life. Clearly the type the WWE has liked before. Not sure what he did to end up on the scrap heap.

I'm wondering if Braun and Aleister asked for their releases given how they've been booked.

I'm so excited right now. Alister, Brauns and Murphy to AEW would be fucking AWESOME.

I thought they JUST hired Zelina Vega back. And Aleister just got back on TV.

Lana just signed a 5 year deal last year (the one Miro didnt sign). Strange they would let her leave considering clearly she will be able to join him now.

Strowman is the real shock though. WWE doesnt just let former World Champions go. I can't even think of the last active former World Champ they released.

How much money do they need to save, they are making the most money ever.

From winning the world title off Goldberg at WrestleMania to released in 14 months. Jeez.

This would not surprise me. The stop-start booking can't be fun to deal with.

Yeah feel like something must have happened with Strowman... can't imagine them just deciding to release him unless he asked for it or something else happened

the way he was treated at mania made him look like a dumb wuss.

Not everyone has to go to AEW either. Look at Brian Myers and Matt Cardona (Hawkins and Ryder). They’re not great but they carved out a nice spot for themselves at Impact. More importantly, seem way happier to have a semblance of control on their careers vs being stuck in catering every week on the bottom rung of the main roster.

A WWE release isn’t a death sentence, they’ll be fine.

Not Aleister

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Im gathering my thoughts as this was a complete left field for me as obviously we just started the dark father character but this was it, thank you so much WWE universe for allowing me to create and give you small bits of myself.</p>&mdash; Tommy End (@WWEAleister) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWEAleister/status/1400112081060478979?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

black needs to join decay, they fire ruby but not her tag partner, i bet she will be next. i think wwe is for sale.

This. Of course they will blame it on "budget".

It is also crazy that WWE can lock them up with 5 year contracts, and refuse to release them, but then on a whim they can just release them if the talent asks. They should have to give them a buy out or something.

lana is the only one i see going to aew could be braun too.

Aleister and Murphy would be great in Japan or really wherever they want to go.

Agreed, their styles seem to mesh well.




Braun in AEW would definitely be interesting.

Lana is the easy bet to be in AEW 90 days from now.

AEW won't sign Murphy, he is far too much like Omega in the ring, and no way the egos there will let that happen.

Tony Khan said he was interested in Vega before, so id imagine he would also be willing to sign Black.

Ruby Riot maybe, but she would be just another body in the women's division.

Santana Garrett, I'm not entirely sure who that even is.

Strowman is almost TOO WWE to go to AEW. Maybe if he goes and has a big run in New Japan for a year or two, but even then WWE would likely just try to bring him back.

Bizarre

Tommy End in the G-1, please

what does "too wwe" to go to AEW really mean and why isn't he too wwe for NJPW?

God damn this would be great

AEW could really use a guy like Braun to diversify their roster some more. They have a few hosses, but they don't have anyone who's an absolute monster like Braun.

That it is the only place he has ever worked. He only knows the WWE Style.

santana is a full time jobber, she is like heath slater was. she has been getting stars over in wrestling for years, i know she used to work for impact. so she will ether job for impact or aew.

now big show and mark henry work for aew they can train him right.

NO MORE CHOO CHOO TRAIN???

the funny thing is lana can be in the crowd at aew shows now, as long as she don't work for them. nothing wwe can do to them if she is shown on camera.

Can't wait for them to share record profits on the next call. They're truly a morally corrupt company.

I think they are gearing up for a sale.

They let 60 people go from corporate last week and re-shuffled a ton of departments under Kevin Dunn. Everything they've been doing would make them seem as profitable as possible to a potential buyer. I've thought a sale could happen since the SD to FOX deal and more so since the WWE Network to Peacock deal. Vince has also said before during investor calls he is open to a sale.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Foreboding that WWE is preparing to sell is the stuff of cynical wrestling fan fatalism. New leadership came on in August and is still in Year 1. I would be shocked if WWE sells in Vince's lifetime. 1) Nick Khan indicated to Cowherd that Vince has no intention to sell.</p>&mdash; Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1400128542466248709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

While I agree, it makes no sense to do it now when they still have 3+ years left on their Fox deal.

I could certainly see them selling to NBC once the rights for Smackdown would also be included. Until then though they are going to do everything to keep NBC happy, which includes the corporate moves they are making.

That however should not be effecting the roster at all.

Sounds like more releases could happen tomorrow per news sites

yeah i see bray going liv and a few others

I am likely the only person in the world to think this, but Aleister Black isn't a big loss. Nobody looks like him, but everyone wrestles like him.

On top of that, he is the only guy who got helped by the WWE's NXT Name Generator.

I actually think Braun could be a good fit for New Japan

Ruby would be a great fit for AEW's womens division

yeah japan likes big guys

Just eyeballing the roster, Keith Lee and Jeff Hardy being let go wouldn't surprise me. The former has seemingly disappeared and the latter probably makes a pretty high wage to be relegated to Main Event.

i figured they will do all the cuts today thats why i am waiting around

What a wild story it would be if the WWE/NJPW talks were actually WWE talking with New Japan's parent company, Bushiroad, about potential sale of WWE. Stranger things have happened...

I know NBCUniversal/Comcast would seem like the prime buyer but my gut instinct thinks it would be someone unexpected. I mean no one thought a talent agency in Los Angeles would buy UFC, that came out of nowhere.

Braun isn’t going to have trouble finding work. He’s fucking massive, he’s a big enough name and there isn’t a promotion in the world who doesn’t need a huge monster to crush people.

Kevin Dunn needs to be sent to federal prison for attempted murder because I am sure he causes seizures with the 97,000 camera cuts he does in a show

how much money does bushiroad have,i think wwe will sale to a big streaming co.

Would be cool if they let Ricochet go free . . .

Keith Lee would be sweet in AEW also . . .

I'd be shocked if they sold to a streaming company unless it was NBCUniversal for more WWE on Peacock content.

Insane scenario would like be Amazon buying WWE and WWE announcing like 3 more shows a week for Amazon Prime, each 2-3 hours long.

amazon has all the money they can buy it if they want it

fox sports too they have money after selling there movies to disney

Going public with WWE was a fantastic decision for the McMahon's net worth but it might not have been the best idea for wrestling as a whole.

WWE is basically a content-producing company now, whose goal is to put out as much content as possible and constantly top prior profits. The future goal will be to increase growth and thus have even more content than they do now. There has to be a bubble burst moment at some point.

Not gonna lie, AEW should bring Braun in as their Brock Lesnar. Should come in, beat the hell out of Moxley with ease in a squash match, then handily when the world title off of Omega.

Then a lengthy title reign where he barely appears/wrestles except for the big events

I think the only women's tag teams in WWE now are Nattie/Tamina, Nia/Shayna, and Mandy/Dana. Might be time to close shop on the women's tag division.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Smackdown has seven active women's competitors</p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1400116422622187526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Or they are getting ready to do a bunch of callups from NXT perhaps, who knows

Strowman's career is pretty surreal.... get the fans into him, build his momentum.... kill all his momentum and interest, give him a title run only then, and then release him.

Should definitely also straight up have him murder Orange Cassidy and Jungle Boy too

They have a metric fuckton of women in NXT who haven't even debuted on TV yet so they've got options.

No big shocks here. Well, it doesn’t seem like WWE to separate from Braun, but he is the drizzling shits. It’s a cut that makes sense, it’s just odd to see the WWE do something that makes sense.

Aleister Black is miserable and isn’t that good. Lana is miserable and costing the company half-a-million per year. Murphy is boring and a flippy guy without much more. Santana Garrett is fine looking and fine in the ring, but not much better.

It’s the circle of life that wrestling needs to keep freshening itself up by cutting people in all sorts of roles that just aren’t working any more.

I even forgot about Ruby Riott here, which speaks itself.

They missed the boat soooo badly on Braun during his feud with Roman

Pre-Order your Aleister shirt now!

https://shop.wwe.com/collections/ale...hentic-t-shirt

Sean Ross Sapp reported the Braun release was because his contract was expensive and worth over 1 million per year. Other names might be released too who have expensive deals.

AJ Styles maybe? He's a current tag champ, but lol at that actually making a difference.

Sami Zayn or KO wouldn't shock me, same for Cesaro

seth has a big contract and no belt

Feeling more confident in my Jeff Hardy prediction. There's no way that dude isn't making bank off of tenure/name value.

R-Truth is not a main eventer or anything but he's been with the company for 13 years now so given his tenure he might make more than you'd expect for someone at his spot on the card, and they seem to have gotten bored of the 24/7 title gimmick.

:rofl:

A level-headed analysis if I've ever seen one.

I don't know where else to put this but someone on my Facebook just said "if you're a wrestling fan, you gotta be more confident in AEW than WWE."

You could theoretically make a wrestling company that could surpass WWE within a year just with a roster made up of guys they’ve missed the boat on.

It was a nice run, Shelton.

Was it though?

Ugh. Not every thread needs to turn into WWE vs. AEW, but holy fuck no. They have ruined EVERYBODY they have gotten their hands on. Christian isn’t special. CHRISTIAN. Miro is a goof that they are now presenting as serious (soon to be doing more comedy with his wife, possibly in a feud with Cody and Brandi once baby is born). FTR are worse off. Luke Harper showed up in a school sowing class costume. The closest thing to a “star” they have created is Darby Allin, and who really gives a fuck.

Neither wrestling promotion is that amazing at pushing talent. But at least the WWE are trimming dead weight to clean themselves up for a sale and stand to make billions.

Not really, content-wise, but he got to milk 5 years of WWE money to basically pretend he enjoyed being there.

I REALLY hope Bray is next, but I don’t see them kicking him. He’s more likely to make a splash somewhere being something different. I don’t see them releasing Jeff either, because The Hardys being together would improve Mid-Card Matt’s value, but they may just call the bluff there and let them do silly shit to bury themselves.

I see the big “shocker” being Keith Lee, if his medical shit has cleared up and they’re just not using him. He’s just a big fat guy with an overinflated sense of importance and a semi-racist gimmick (“I’m a SMART black man”). It just hasn’t worked and you can let someone else make a big deal out of him and look like fools.

As for where talent will go:

-CJ Perry will go to AEW.

-Matt Silva will end up in New Japan if he wants to go back to the WWE (word is that’s always been his end-goal). If he doesn’t and working in front of smaller audiences is fine, he’ll end up in AEW.

-Santana Garrett will have offers from AEW and MLW (MSL is a huge fan). She may be low-balled by AEW because egos may not like her look.

-Heidi Lovelace to...eh, who gives a fuck? NWA, MLW, TNA, AEW, it’ll all be the same. I can see AEW giving her a shot to do “hardcore” shit.

-Tommy End will get a big MLW offer if they can do it. Court Bauer has said he’s a guy that he would build around. That’s if the WWE run didn’t sour that for him. If he doesn’t go there, I do think he’ll end up in AEW, possibly with his wife.

Bix is spot on

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hypothetically, you recruit this giant powerlifter, and because he's big, you call him up to the main roster in spite of him being the worst wrestler under contract. Given the chance to sink or swim, he wins the damn race, gets good, gets over...and you're like &quot;eh...&quot;<br><br>REALLY?!?</p>&mdash; David Bixenspan (@davidbix) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1400200347973476353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

From what I've seen, Keith Lee's articulated vocabulary has always just been the way he talks. Did WWE make it about race at some point?

I hope they don't reunite the hardyz. Big money Matt is one of the few decent gimmicks in aew, and it's far more entertaining than hardyz Matt.

Bray would be interesting because then we'd see how much of his failed gimmicks was really WWE fucking things up, as there have been plenty of reports of him being upset with people fucking up his creative vision.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">rip <a href="https://t.co/ow8km27RwN">pic.twitter.com/ow8km27RwN</a></p>&mdash; Will Ospreay is the greatest wrestler of all time (@Switchbladeera_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Switchbladeera_/status/1400152350887661579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Braun fucking sucks. He almost killed himself in his last match. People are looking at the Ryback/Ahmed Johnson effect. When put into position, he couldn’t really do the job.

He will move into stunt work and try to play a big guy, possibly of the creepy/funny redneck variety, in the pictures. Occasionally he will make occasional appearances for the WWE again. Kind of like The Boogeyman, only maybe a little more serious/used for an actual angle or two.

Braun was on fire during his feud with Roman. That's just not true.

Yeah he was far and away the most over guy on the roster for months and months until they dropped the ball with him.

Do people not remember this Braun in 2017 and how fucking amazing he was



I'm probably Ryback's biggest supporter out there but he was nowhere NEAR as good in ring as Braun was.

The craziest thing about them releasing Braun is that he's the only true "hoss" on the roster. With the way Vince loves his big sweaty monsters it just baffles me that they release the only one they have right now. I mean you could argue Lashley/Drew/Roman are in that class of big guys but they are puny next to Braun. Just does not make any sense.

Fuck they are about to hotshot that little Brock Lesnar clone they've been fawning over lately aren't they?

Braun should have went over Roman right there. It would have solidified what they were building him to be and it would have given Roman someone to chase. It could have even led to fans getting on board with Roman a bit more, as I could see him turning it up a notch to combat this monster, and historically, the rare occasions where Roman won over everyone in the audience were the moments he went nuts and just kicked a bunch of people's asses. Which is what got him over in the shield in the first place.

Too late now though, as he's been start and stopped too many times for anyone to take him that seriously ever again. Reminds me of Big Show in that regard.

I dunno, I think they could have made it work with him again. The Shane feud was the perfect place to do it too, tbh. Should have had him just snap and lose control again and start breaking stuff on a weekly basis while Shane runs from him. Then have him just murder Shane at WM and boom, he's instantly mega over again.

I honestly think Braun will be back. Probably playing hard ball because he doesn't want to take a pay cut. And he shouldn't take it honestly. But eventually he will. Might be a year or two from now but he will be back.

I remember in 2017 coming across some wrestling fans at work and for a time the first thing they'd ask me on Tuesday was "did you see what Braun Strowman did last night"

Yeah I had friends who stopped watching any wrestling like 15 years ago start tuning in to just see what he would do the next week. They had something special going during that stretch. Clips of him destroying stuff were viral on social media. It was nuts.

Back when RAW25 happened everyone was talking about how great of an idea it would be to have Braun do something big on the show because of the lapsed fans that were tuning in who would see him and be like 'Woah, who is this'.

Braun was the hottest person in WWE at the time, guy was red hot. Instead, RAW25 was a mind-boggling trainwreck and Braun didn't wrestle on the show but briefly appeared in a brawl with Kane and Lesnar.

Honestly his whole run then felt like the closest thing we've had to an attitude era in yearsssss. That whole "what the hell are they gonna come up with next!?" feeling was there like it hadn't been for a long time.

They should totally rethink his firing, secretly bring him back under contract, and then in the build up to summer slam film an angle of him just walking into titan towers and running absolutely amok. Eventually he barges into Vinces office after having wrecked half the place and Vince tries to talk him down and Brauns just like STFU AND GET THESE HANDS and then power slams him through his desk.

ffs im really in disbelief that he is gone :/