WWE release 9 (so far)

[Amazin69]

Chopped this time:

Braun Strowman
Dakota Kai
Shayna Baszler (allegedly, she and Kai dated, about 12 years ago. So maybe they can split a few beers over the weekend and…)
Kayden Carter
Katana Chance

And from NXT:
Cora Jade
Gigi Dolin
Jakara Jackson

Also Riley Osborne, a guy from the Evolve show, but that hardly counts.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Chopped this time:

Braun Strowman
Dakota Kai
Shayna Baszler (allegedly, she and Kai dated, about 12 years ago. So maybe they can split a few beers over the weekend and…)
Kayden Carter
Katana Chance

And from NXT:
Cora Jade
Gigi Dolin
Jakara Jackson

Also Riley Osborne, a guy from the Evolve show, but that hardly counts.

I liked Stroman. I think Baszler was never used correctly. Kai was injured too often.

IMO, the women need their own excusive weekly show. I'm not a fan of women wrestling. But I can see they are getting the short straw when it comes to building their characters & abilities. They need their own development & storytellers. And maybe some of these storylines for both genders will get better. Instead of having one boss dividing his focus on so many angles.

[Amazin69]

More NXT cuts:

Eddy Thorpe (who apparently is whom Dakota dates nowadays…sorry, Shayna)
Gallus (a complete faction: Wolfgang, and Joe and Mark Coffey)
Oro Mensah
Javier Bernal aka "Big Body Javi" (Gigi's boyfriend, so that's going to be a sad household tonight)

And yeah, I'd rather have WWW ("World Wrestling Women") as a separate WWE-run roster than have them buried on the regular shows.

Trick Williams, who is somehow still in NXT, had to job to Eddy Thorpe a few months ago. You hold Trick down in order to build this guy…and then you cut him?? Nicely planned, team!

[snarls200]

add in Dani Palmer and Shotzi

[Amazin69]

Hope Shotzi took the tank with her. ("No, I don't have it. You probably left it in Oklahoma City or wherever. Have you double-checked in the storage area?")

[Cobra Mgr]

Not R-Truth! No flippin' way!

[Amazin69]

Yeah, get on SNME, have the fourth-best moving shirt, have seventeen straight years with the company (fifth-longest consecutive tenure, behind Cena, Orton, Kofi and Miz)…get the axe. Stupid as anything.

Carlito also got cut, which is so dumb. There are a half-dozen Latino wrestlers who are bringing NOTHING to the product, and yet Carli (a useful part of a major faction) gets dropped.

I mean, Andrade gets in the MitB match and Carlito gets cut. Explain the "logic" there, I beg you.

[Syd Thrift]

R Truth is an ATG, period, end of story.

[Cobra Mgr]

R-Truth!!!!!!

They fooled the world w/this one.

[Syd Thrift]

Including themselves, given that media outlets are reporting that the decision to bring Killings back came around 4 days ago now (72 hours as of the article that was posted yesterday).

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Including themselves, given that media outlets are reporting that the decision to bring Killings back came around 4 days ago now (72 hours as of the article that was posted yesterday).

Yeah. I'm reading the backlash from fans and the locker room made HHH & TKO holdings reverse course.

These are the same mistakes corporate people make when they take over sports teams. You can't make personnel decisions the same way you make them in a factory. Because personnel doesn't make the product. They are the product.

[Syd Thrift]

I mean I think it's exacerbated with sports entertainment because while you can make a case for trading away, say, a fan favorite like Eugenio Suarez because he's older and isn't likely to be worth the contract, etc., Ron Killings' fan-favorite status *is* the product. Even if he'd lost a step as a wrestler, which he just plain hasn't, he's still such a fun personality that... jeez, I think I was reading that even before the release his merch was tops in sales.

Just an absolutely short-sighted deal by the corporate ownership in power; I think HHH was probably able to leverage the outcry to bring him back but man that does kind of suck for the WWE's future. On the other hand, they're probably less likely now to have their top leadership involved in sex scandals so there's that at least...

[Amazin69]

Yeah, some unwavering advocates for WWE were trying to spin Truth's release as a "work" when Ron announced it on Sunday, June 1st…but it was obvious that it wasn't. Cutting Carlito was the same sort of "you're old and we don't need pure comedy acts" budget-conscious move. It's only because the fans got behind Ron that he's back, hopefully on a decent deal.

Must say those were two of the worst "belt shots" I've ever seen; Cena barely brushed Cody's cheek with the strap and John had his hands up when Truth "hit" him with the belt, which never came within 18" of John's face. Lame.

(Perhaps not as lame as Penta just freezing on the top of the ladder waiting for Grande Americano to do that triple-ladder catapult to "interrupt" him, but even so. Dolph Ziggler once noted with a mixture of pride and annoyance that he's the only one who climbs ladders quickly…everybody else just mllks the "drama". At the end of Zigg and Miz's 2016 TLC match for the Intercontinental title, they were both dealing with leg injuries…and they still climbed quicker than the current standard.)

[Cobra Mgr]

It's not just the fans & the merchandise.

What did letting R Truth go tell the locker room? I mean, you keep certified butt holes like Flair & Hogan on the roster. But you let a guy like Truth go who has done nothing but everything asked of him & made it entertaining no matter how stupid it was? From Little Jimmy to Goldust to the 24/7 belt. And then the fact I've never heard a wrestler shoot off camera about Killings being a cancer backstage.

If an employee like that ain't worth keeping around, then how comfortable should the rest of the roster feel about WWE employment? I guarantee you every grappler who has a contract ending in 18 mo started sending out feelers to other promotions.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

And then the fact I've never heard a wrestler shoot off camera about Killings being a cancer backstage.

Exactly the opposite in fact: everyone I've heard talk about Killings in the locker room has voiced what a positive and fun guy to be around backstage he is. I mean, jeez, even Jim Cornette, who hates comedy acts as a rule (funny because he was basically a comedy villain when he was in the business) appreciates and enjoys the R-Truth character in large part, I think, because R-Truth isn't going for gags per se but playing a character who lends itself to lots and lots of comedy. Like, Santino pinioned from being kind of dumb to being a guy who didn't speak English well and got everyone's name wrong (the Italian pronunciation of John Cena was a master stroke though) to being occasionally witty.

R-Truth is... I know people say "dumb" but I think "rash" is a better description of who he is. He'll just go in deciding that something is true and it's near-impossible to convince him otherwise (witness that whole deal with Judgment Day, which was all told just about the funniest thing I've seen out of the men's wing the past 5 years) (have to specify the men's wing because the women have former USA Champion Chelsea Green). An awful lot of the time the bit he does, for instance, where he's like "AND THAT'S WHY I'M GONNA WIN MONEY IN THE BANK" and Kane's like "you're not IN Money in the Bank" and he's like "oh, my bad" is funny not because he's dumb but because an awful lot of us have been in that situation or gotten close to it before something in our head said "hey man, you should probably double-check that".