WWE Releases Bourne, Clay, Others

[MT]

This seems like a curious round of releases compared to past years. Most times it's kind of easy to see the pattern or why someone is getting cut. This time it kind of looks like someone drew names out of a hat.

Teddy Long being flat-out released seems to me like kind of an insult to a guy who has given so many years to the company in a meaningful capacity, not to mention his decades given to wrestling in general. I can't imagine he had a real long contract to ride out or that they couldn't have dumped some real dead weight instead this time around.

Brodus Clay is a guy they let twist in the wind after he seemed to be really getting over with the Funkadactyl bit. They let that drop for no good reason and just let him slip off the radar. His release is probably the biggest surprise because of his range and versatility.

Yoshi Tatsu's main problem is that he's Japanese. WWE has never seen an Asian wrestler they won't stereotype and misuse. This also probably means they've got another Japanese guy coming in because they seem to treat Asians like an old gimmick (you can only have one guy doing the "Asian gimmick" at a time).

[maddog1981]

They just let Long's contract expire.

[MT]

Jun 13, 2014 6:40:47 GMT -4 maddog1981 said:

They just let Long's contract expire.

That's fine, but they still lumped him in with all the names of guys being released in their own "news" section headline on their site. I think the right thing to do would have been to let him either have a send off in story or just let him leave quietly.
www.wwe.com/inside/wwe-releases-brodus-clay-evan-bourne-curt-hawkins-other-superstars-june-12-2014-26386880

That gives the impression they unceremoniously "future endeavored" him with all the rest, which is a shitty thing to do.

[guiltyparty]

Ricardo Rodriguez is a very late addition to the release list.
Seems to me like Rodriguez was wasted once they split him from ADR. The few matches they had him work as El Local down in NXT with Kalisto were fairly solid.
I'm wondering if Rodriguez is the for runner to a fresh round of cuts (look out Brad Maddox!) or the last of the previous purge?

[tax]

Sounds like Rodriguez requested his release so he could wrestle more.

[MT]

The cuts continued this week with four people I never heard of from NXT and Shaun Ricker. They may have missed the boat on that guy. He's got the look, the skill, the size, and the talking ability they usually look for, yet they never even bothered to put him on TV. I couldn't figure that out. I don't know if this was a case of (un)creative not being able to figure out how to use him or if he pissed someone off, but there is no doubting the guy has skills far ahead of a lot of the people they're using prominently right now.

[maddog1981]

I think it's having 60 guys and an hour of TV a week.

[MT]

Aug 3, 2014 17:58:53 GMT -4 maddog1981 said:

I think it's having 60 guys and an hour of TV a week.

That's an easy answer, but it doesn't say anything about the situation really. My point is that they are giving TV time to people who are clearly not ready and don't seem to have any real upside, but they ignored and released a guy who was practically coming to them ready-made. Whether it's the Stay Hyped guy, the "Sawft" mid-2000s Jersey guys, or whatever the case may be, they are featuring some wrestlers who just don't seem like they're all that good while wrestlers like Ricker and Sami Calihan toil in obscurity (and in Ricker's case, gets released).

I call that one a bad move. I've got to think there are internal reasons beyond performance for this release.