WWE’s Pandemic Firing Squad: Who we lostBy Matthew Martin| May 5, 2020 WWE Blogs WWE has been making money like gangbusters over the past few years. This comes despite stagnant WWE Network Subscriptions, declining house show attendance, and sinking TV viewership. All it took was a few trips to Saudi Arabia, some blood money, a couple of shows, Goldberg nearly killing The Undertaker, and everyone nearly dying on the runway and presto: IN THE BLACK! Anyway, despite the company’s profits being “strong to quite strong” the month of April saw a slew of firings. Superstars from the upper to the lower card were let go left and right. Granted, it’s not uncommon for WWE to let some talent go after WrestleMania, but the sheer amount this year has been incredible. Many of these performers were recently signed, others recently extended their deals not even a year ago, signing agreements for five (some for seven) years only to be released in the middle of a pandemic where almost no one is hiring, especially pro wrestling companies. I’m not going to run down the long list of everyone fired, but just to highlight a few notable names… Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows These guys were technically in the main event of WrestleMania (night one) just one month ago. They came to WWE after doing great work in Japan but were only signed because AJ Styles pushed for it, only re-signed because WWE offered a stupid amount of money to keep them away from AEW, and throughout their time in the company WWE never did anything worthwhile with them. Drake Maverick Another talent that was brought in to fill a comedy role but was never pushed beyond that. WWE is really bad about pigeon-holing someone into a genre and never giving them a chance to evolve out of it. Maverick’s release would normally be a blip on the radar if it weren’t for his passionate video response to being fired, his continuing to be used on NXT TV in the Cruiserweight Tournament. It’s actually quite a pickle WWE is now in: If they go through with firing him after his 90 days are up, despite how popular he’s become on NXT, they look like fools. If they bring him back, they look heartless for not giving the same chance to other released talent. My immediate thoughts.@WWE @WWENXT #WWE #NXT @TripleH @ShawnMichaels #Cruiserweight pic.twitter.com/Afw58V7eo1 — Drake Maverick (@WWEMaverick) April 15, 2020 Aiden English A classic case of “wrestler we didn’t want to become popular and make our show better suddenly became popular and made our show better so we had to punish him for trying to grab the brass ring we’re always talking about.” Aiden was a good wrestler. He was a really good commentator. He was a great manager. He should have been a veteran utility guy, instead, he was another in a long line of “really good” guys that WWE’s “creative” team didn’t like and actively sought to diminish. EC3 Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Ethan Carter is reasonably big, charismatic, good on the mic, good enough in the ring; he ought to be the kind of performer Vince would love. Failing that, he’s certainly a good enough talent to succeed even without the adoration of WWE’s aged egomaniacal owner. And yet, he was brought into WWE and never, not once, ever was he given anything to do. Bizarre. Heath Slater Slater’s a guy that seemed poise to be in WWE for another decade, floating around the bottom of the card, randomly getting over with a gimmick for a six-month stretch, then shuffling down the card again until the next gimmick popped up. His firing, if we’re being fair, really doesn’t amount to much, but it definitely hit me in the feels. Zack Ryder Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Everything I said about Heath Slater applies here, only ten times worse. Everything I said about Aiden English applies here, only ten times worse. There aren’t many guys in WWE’s history who were as clearly popular but actively undermined by WWE as Ryder. Zack was the first WWE guy to really embrace social media and, in a lot of ways, pioneered a lot of what guys like The Elite, Matt Hardy, and others did in years that followed. All he had to show for his fifteen years in WWE was an IC Title win at WrestleMania 32…though, to be fair, that was maybe the highlight of the night. Eric Young He and his SAnitY stable were just starting to make waves in NXT (the way the Wyatt Family or the Undisputed Era did before them) when they were called up to the main roster and promptly forgotten. Young is a tremendously talented performer and could have been something in WWE had the company cared to see what they had in him. Rusev Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content You’re free now little bird. Fly away. I only wish Chad Gable could have escaped, too, but WWE knows he’s too good to let a competent company get their hands on him, so they’ll keep hiding him. At least you escaped. Go prove them wrong. Kurt Angle The most “it is what it is” release of the bunch. Angle is financially set. He has nothing else to prove. He’s on my personal Mt. Rushmore and will forever be my favorite pro wrestler ever…but he wasn’t doing anything in WWE and his release wasn’t a shock either. I would love to see him find a part-time place in AEW as a manager, but if he decided to just go retire on a beach somewhere, I will certainly be happy for him. He’s earned it. Cain Velasquez Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content This guy was brought in purely to build up a Brock vs Cain match, the collateral damage of which was the unceremonious end to Kofimania. I don’t know how many millions WWE wasted on signing him only to fire him after doing nothing, but I hope it was a lot of millions. Curtis Axel Another guy who looked poised for an unspectacular midcard-for-life career. There’s always a place for solid hands like that, guys who clearly don’t have “it” but who can still work as a jobber to the stars. Axel completes the trifecta of guys, along with Slater and Ryder, that I thought were set for WWE careers into the next decade. Instead, he’s gone on a whim. Mike Chioda Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content He and Charles Robinson were the two best refs WWE had. He couldn’t have been making much. Why you gotta fire Mike? ***** These performers have one of two options: They can either continue to be paid by WWE whatever the downside of their contract is (the minimum amount owed) for 90 days, during which time they have to sit at home or, in a few rare cases, continue working WWE shows until their 90 days is up. The other option is to leave and be eligible for work immediately, with their last WWE paycheck being their last WWE paycheck. The way WWE structures their contracts is stupidly one-sided in favor of the company. Only a small number of performers are big enough names to have leverage in negotiations; the rest are given whatever deals Vince and co. deep acceptable, with the understanding that sports entertainers in WWE should just be happy to be there. WWE’s business practices are draconian to say the least. Unionizing should not have to be done in order to ensure, say, better healthcare for the wrestlers, but if that’s what it takes so be it. WWE takes advantage of the fact that their wrestlers are deemed “independent contractors” and while there are, technically, advantages to being an independent contractor (namely the freedom to work on your own schedule, for whomever you want), those advantages are not present for those who work for WWE. Being an “independent contractor” is just a legal loophole in WWE, not a true description. All the power is with the employer and none with the employee. That’s the reason to unionize, not to swing the pendulum the other way, but to balance it so that things are fair to both sides. But unionizing is probably not going to happen. It’s been talked about and tried in little ways here and there over the years, but nothing’s ever come of it. It certainly won’t happen voluntarily, and until it does, things like what happened last month will happen again and again.
