Backstage Details Behind This Week’s WWE NXT Releases, Update on More Releases Coming

– As noted, WWE released 12 NXT wrestlers yesterday, which included some notable names as Bronson Reed, Mercedes Martinez, and Bobby Fish. Fightful Select has an update on the story after the outlet spoke to an anonymous, high level WWE official on the releases. The official also stated that WWE releases will be happening as a regular occurrence moving forward.

The official explained to Fightful that in 2018, WWE started a “talent stashing” plan with what where assumed to be “honest intentions” by all involved. Many pitches for the “talent stashing” involved collecting various wrestling talent, developing WWE Performance Centers internationally and then adding native and international talent to each of the new Performance Centers. Some talents would also bounce between the various overseas territories.

However, the official noted those plans were halted after about a year. Rather than having talent bounce between territories, they would stay “parked” in one. Also, a lot of focus went into launching NXT TV on the USA Network. A short time after WWE NXT launched on USA Network, the COVID-19 pandemic set in and it sent everything into a screeching halt.

Fightful’s report noted that the WWE official showed “extreme frustration,” but also showed the line of thinking from a corporate WWE standpoint. Additionally, the report noted that the line of thinking that WWE privately puts out regarding this week’s latest releases it that “it’s business.”

The source reportedly added that Vince McMahon himself would have the power to stop “any” of the recent releases. However, the calls on who gets cut are rumored said to be a “collaborative effort.” The anonymous WWE official added that more WWE releases will continue regularly moving forward, but the official thinks 2021 will more than likely serve as an outlier in terms of the regularity and amount of talents who were released. Additionally, this level of “mass releases” within WWE hadn’t been an issue from about 2016 until 2020.

April 2020 is when WWE had its first group of mass releases during the pandemic. Also, Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast reported today that more NXT releases are coming.

And more to come. https://t.co/ZblQiPnUIj

— Andrew Zarian (@AndrewZarian) August 7, 2021