The others, I can see. But Billie Kay? She's been outstanding and genuinely hilarious the past few months.

Billie Kay's a surprise. Doesn't feel deserved at all. Guess that would be Johnny Ace's influence. Chelsea Green had some bad luck with injuries. The others? Probably overdue because they haven't done anything in ages.

Well, Samoa Joe on the other hand...

I updated my original post.

Samoa Joe is a huge WTF.

Bo Dallas was expected but still sad.

Peyton Royce released as well

Budget cuts. This fucking company.

23 minutes ago, rovert said:

Again you only bring Johnny Ace back to talent relations to cut people really. 

"Well pal, what do you say about coming back so you can cut people and all the heat for it, huh? HA-HA!"

Wonder how many of these ladies were released so they could pay Johnny Ace's daughters-in-law enough to come back. 

Now people can start getting mad at Johnny Ace in shoot interviews again

Honestly the only surprise to me is Samoa Joe, I wonder if he requested his release if it became clear they weren't going to allow him to go back in  the ring, WWE clearly didn't see anything in any of the others. 

Plus the balls of this company to cite budget cuts when they literally just got a billion dollars from Peacock. 

11 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Honestly the only surprise to me is Samoa Joe, I wonder if he requested his release if it became clear they weren't going to allow him to go back in  the ring, WWE clearly didn't see anything in any of the others. 

Plus the balls of this company to cite budget cuts when they literally just got a billion dollars from Peacock. 

They did the same last year made a bunch of cuts and then announced record profits I expect the same again at the next call whenever that is.

Last year's releases fell on exactly the same day too - April 15th. Wonder if it's a tax thing? 

Oh man, give me the Samoa Joe global retirement run. It’s incredibly shady and yet more bullshit from WWE but I can’t lie when I say that’s all I can think about 

They released Kalisto too?! I hope that’s a case of a worker asking for their release because he feels like someone you could keep around for years in any role.

Just now, Stiva said:

They released Kalisto too?! I hope that’s a case of a worker asking for their release because he feels like someone you could keep around for years in any role.

I think it is, he was tweeting support for Andrade when he left so it definitely gave the impression he was looking to move on from WWE. 

Also at this point Vince McMahon is the Bobby Kotick of wrestling. Bobby's the CEO of video game company Activision and he just got a $200 million bonus the same time they cut like 190 people from the company. 

Joe is the most interesting cut there, seemed like they were pretty high on him in his out of ring role considering they used him all over both Takeover stuff and Wrestlemania. I wonder if he quietly retires and sticks to voice over and gaming stuff, if he continues to do commentary somewhere (AEW can't seem to hire enough commentators), or if he has one more in ring run left in him. It'd be cool to see him get a NJ run but I don't know if his body will hold up. 

Yeah it seems odd Joe goes from calling WrestleMania, to being off the Raw team, then being cut entirely. Has all the earmarks of there being an interesting story behind it. 

Whatever the story, I'm glad he got that WWE run even if it was too late and wasn't what it could have been. Imagine the legend of Samoa Joe ending in 10 years like the last 4-5 years of his TNA run. 

I wouldn't be shocked to see Mickie James in NWA. I think Chelsea probably goes back to iMPACT! & it seems like a no brainer for Peyton Royce to wind-up in AEW with Shawn Spears. Which probably means Billie Kay goes with her. Maybe Kalisto winds up in ROH. Wonder if any of them will show up in MLW.

I imagine they all have 90-day no complete clauses. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Samoa Joe. If nothing else, I hope we get another shoot interview or podcast from him. Always loved his story-telling. 

42 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Last year's releases fell on exactly the same day too - April 15th. Wonder if it's a tax thing? 

As your resident tax guy, that's just the deadline for paying taxes on last year's income, so it's probably a coincidence. It's not like these cuts could even give them extra cash to pay their tax bill, since they usually pay people for the length of the non-compete.

I’ve been out of the loop but what happened to Samoa Joe? Is he not wrestling anymore? What happened?

2 minutes ago, Sweet Brown Koko said:

I’ve been out of the loop but what happened to Samoa Joe? Is he not wrestling anymore? What happened?

He had some concussion issues so they had him on commentary. Everyone assumed he'd be back in the ring at some point, and then *poof* he gets cut.

At least he was able to give us Rain Poncho Joe before leaving. 

Peyton Royce is gone now. Didn't they split up The Iiconics because they wanted to push Peyon?

42 minutes ago, kas said:

Peyton Royce is gone now. Didn't they split up The Iiconics because they wanted to push Peyon?

Yup, Vince thought she was the breakout star, which to be fair might have been the case but they did jack shit with both of them afterwards.

Seeing it mentioned on social media  that Billie has a case for being the most screwed over by the pandemic as her act would have almost surely become one of those cult favorite things with the fans that would have forced the company to do something with her. 

2 hours ago, Strummer said:

Now people can start getting mad at Johnny Ace in shoot interviews again

You know, he never went in the Dick Bag as much as I thought he would.