WWE's mass talent release has been explained after 18 superstars were let go by the professional wrestling juggernaut.
In February, ahead of WrestleMania 41, WWE, under the TKO Group umbrella with UFC, got rid of 15 stars from its roster and further measures were taken just weeks after the spectacle in Las Vegas - which was the most successful and highest-grossing in the company's history.
On Friday, ahead of Smackdown, it was confirmed by multiple media outlets and wrestlers themselves that many more superstars had been given the boot - including both Braun Strowman and Dakota Kai - who were released for the second time.
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Strowman and Kai were joined on the chopping block by Shayna Baszler ,Kayden Carter, Katana Chance, Cora Jade, Gigi Dolin, Eddy Thorpe, Riley Osborne, Jakara Jackson, Wolfgang, Joe Coffey, Mark Coffey (Gallus), Ora Mensah, Javier Bernal, Dani Palmer, Shotzi and Luca Crusifino.
The decision to release Baszler, a former UFC fighter, came as a surprise after she put pen to paper on a new multi-year contract back in September.
But releases have become a yearly practice for WWE, with main roster talents having to serve a 90-day compete clause and those in NXT and developmental forced to wait 30 days before returning to action elsewhere.
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Fans have their theories for why such decisions have been made but Ibou, a writer and podcaster from WrestlePurists, weighed in with insight on how decisions are made.
He stressed that Chief Content Officer Triple H is making the calls at the top while also revealing that the base salary for main roster talent stands at $350,000-a-year.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, he wrote: "Triple H is the final say on any roster personnel decisions. Most non-injured wrestlers that are benched from the TV that he books are candidates to get cut whenever he’s told it’s time to shed roster salary.
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"The priority is that their books, and profit margins look good to shareholders after every quarter, which is why to juice up numbers, they shed contracts. Figuring out the WHEN on these matters is Ari and Nick [Khan]. Figuring out WHO goes is Paul Levesque. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you’d have to be impressively naive to believe otherwise.
"The actual WWE product, roster, talent acquisitions, and business transactions with other promotions is Triple H’s domain. This was always going to be the end result of an influx of WWE ID talent trickling in through the system on the cheap and other avenues of acquiring talent. Especially when the base salary for main roster talent increased to $350,000/year.
"The people that scapegoat TKO solely and pretend HHH has nothing to do with it when being mad at releases need to get real. Ari Emanuel is likely unable to name more than 15-20 talent on the entire WWE roster."
In 2021, following on from the COVID-19 pandemic, WWE released more than 80 wrestlers to trim their roster considerably. A mass exodus on that scale is not expected this time around but further exits cannot be ruled out in the "spring cleaning" exercise.
Topics: WWE, WrestleMania, Wrestling
Josh Lawless