I am wondering if Otis is among those who, uh, contributed to her earning that million.
I am wondering if Otis is among those who, uh, contributed to her earning that million.
Yeah she was released to avoid losing any money from sponsors. People forget how many sponsors the WWE lost when they wanted to cater solely to the 18-47 male demo. It's a win-win for everyone.
Olympic gold medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock has signed with WWE.
https://www.wwe.com/article/olympic-...ljWC_o91sqF3VE
I'm excited. I saw a post yesterday that talked about the difference in charisma/energy she has compared to Gable. I think the WWE kind of did Gable dirty with drafting him to Raw when he was barely in the business. Then again, did we ever hear how he was doing prior to that? After the fact we did, he wasn't progressing as well. Mensah-Stock, if she's about it she'll do well. People don't realize how many wrestlers actually did high school/college/Olympic level wrestling. That's one thing I miss about Jim Ross. You would be hearing about that kind of stuff way more. It helps build up the athletic part and/or the toughness of that character. I remember a selling point of a guy like Ballz Mahoney was that he was banned in Jersey for knocking out a ref.
That's awesome.Originally Posted by mth
Rumors swirling today about Lacey Evans asking for her release, haven't seen it confirmed yet.... apparently she's de-WWE-ing lots of her social media sites.
Good. Bye…
That's awesome
They certainly could've done better utilizing her and the only gimmick that ever really had any wheels was the sassy southern belle stuff. Her ring work wasn't bad, she just didn't feel like an impactful character.
It took me a big to warm up to the southern belle gimmick but after that I liked it and think it was her best gimmick. Once they started messing with that and doing different things with her nothing ever seem to really catch on.
I will miss her.
I think the WWE mis-used her, especially as they seemingly punished her because she got pregnant while she was used in a bad angle with 80 year old Ric Flair. That angle was less about her and more about Ric and Charlotte.
They brought her back as a face, hyping up her military background, in a series of vignettes, but I don't recall them actually pushing her in a match as a face. I think she may have gotten hurt during that timeframe but it certainly didn't live up to expectations, and before we knew it she was a heel again.
She could have been a suitable replacement for Sonya Deville in the tag division, but Piper adds much more of a presence and credibility.
Whether she was released or not yet, she seemed like a prime candidate for release once the Endeavor sale goes through.
When they brought her back in the "military/'Murica" gimmick, they waffled back and forth on whether she was face or heel. Hell, within a month of matches and vignettes she went through the equivalent of 3 years worth of Big Show flip-flops in that regard.
The Flair love-child angle was vile, and only subservient to getting over Charlotte (who was already over and at least a 7 time champ, IIRC) and Ric (who either was in the middle of divorce #16 or just about to have his stroke... or both). The minute she said "I'm having his baby" she should've asked for her release, unless they were going to come up with some Wrestlecrap 'Mae Young Hand-baby' or however they backwalked out of Lita and Kane having a baby.
I seem to recall they backwalked out of Lita and Kane having a baby by having Snitsky hurt Lita. Snitsky then tried to get over the catchphrase "It's not my fault", as he punted a fake baby into the crowd...
Feel like Lacey not getting anywhere was a mix of being not particularly above average herself and WWE not committing to her character so she was all over the place with repackagings and face/heel turns so no one even knew how to react or have a reason to care. Hell, the only time she really seemed to be sticking was the Sassy Southern Belle heel role but even then, they over pushed her into that feud with Corbin/Seth/Becky which probably did more damage than good and likewise with the previously mentioned gawd-awful angle with Charlotte/Ric. Then there were the injuries and pregnancy which set her back. The social media bullshit probably didn't do her any favors, either. Can't say I'll miss her if she goes and she won't leave a void.
They brought Lacey back as a babyface because she was doing some reality tv show of some kind and they didn't want her to be portrayed in a negative light while that was airing. She lost all her momentum when she got pregnant and had to leave and it was made worse by returning as a bland babyface. She's 33 she could very easily wind up in another promotion or back in WWE. I'm not sure I even believe she's leaving. Simply "de-WWE-ing" your social media gets so blown out of proportion, same thing happened with Alexa Bliss and countless others. They put their real name and don't litter their social media with WWE stuff people go "They're leaving!"
Lacey Evans and Xia Li are totally misused.
Yeah, I seem to remember there was a trend where a good chunk of the roster changed their socials to have their real names. Doesn't mean anything. I guess she posted some other thing about a countdown that's giving folks the idea, too.
Agreed on Xia Li. She's so fucking cool and should be tearing it up.
Good riddance in regards to Lacey. She had so much potential back in her NXT days, but a mixture of her looney opinions and god awful booking made her a lost cause. How many times was she repackaged? 3? 4? And none of it ever stuck. Her gimmicks were never something folks would care about, but on the flipside she just wasn't good enough to make any of it work.
As for Xia Li... she's got a cool look, but she hasn't figured out how to protect her opponents. She's been in WWE for 6 years and she's still green as fuck.
It's hard to make a gimmick stick when the WWE put it on tv for a week and then took her off for 3 months and then brought her back for 2 weeks to be taken off tv again and again and again.
Xia Li still has potential. Asuka's legit knocked out 2-3 women and she's the best wrestler in the industry, shit happens.
Yeah I think the fact that they rarely gave Lacey a chance to make some of the changes work didn't help. I would like to see her back at some point but she needs to be away and maybe go work some indies to keep in ring shape and maybe work her way back. Sometimes that just works out for people.
Xia Li is a bad ass that we need to see more of. She knocked out Mercedes Martinez in NXT. Shit happens. She connected just right on a hard kick and well out she went. Don't think Martinez was upset over it or anything. Overall she does just fine.
What part of that clip was supposed to be supporting your point? Saw nothing glaringly obvious. Also, you counted a kayfabe injury to Alliyah against her. So really there's the one time she concussed Mercedes and...that's it.
I will say this, the fact Li has been in the WWE this long shows they have faith in her abilities and what she can offer beyond being Chinese. They don't use her enough to say they're trying to cater to these Chinese market like say Jinder for example and the Indian market. So ultimately it has to be well liked, willing to improve, sadly it's WWE and they're not exactly known for pushing Asian talent. Understandable. She's 35, they need to either shit or get off the pot. You can't just have her losing on Main Event. How is she not in a tag-team with someone? Team her up with Nikki Cross.
She has a good friend that's supposedly on her way back to WWE...
She’d be inSANE to do that!She has a good friend that's supposedly on her way back to WWE...
Are they friends?She has a good friend that's supposedly on her way back to WWE...
Yup.
Last edited by mth; August 16th, 2023 at 4:55 PM.
That is awesome I've never seen any of that. That would be a great story.
If they swapped Nikki for Kairi, it would’ve been Saneity
Its amazing how Lacey and WWE both dropped the bag on this. When Lacey first showed up for the Mae Young tournament that everyone thought she was going to be the STAR. Hell, even Sasha tweeted out she wanted to wrestle her. Yet, she never got past the "Look". Her in ring stuff was ok, but I feel like her character and her gimmicks never meshed. It also didn't help she is a nut job anti-vaxxer. WWE put her in bad stories like Becky/Seth and Flair's sugar momma, but ultimately, I don't think she connected minus the first time we saw her. She had X-Poc heat, so I don't think anyone is going to be losing sleep over this, but man if feels like such a waste on all parties.
She is gone, Rhonda's gone and Baron Corbin shoved the Olympic wrestler out the door after their NXT PPV match.
Is Stevenson released, or was he just fulfilling duties.
Either way he was awful and a college girl rapist to boot. Buh bye!
You know you’re bad when even Corbin is getting more cheers over you.
He just worked an NXT house show, so not released.
Is that jacket guy still in WWE.
Ikemen Jiro? Yeah, he has been on LVL Up lately. Wish he was on the main show. Love him.
I'll have to watch level up then. I live him too
And yet a week prior the entire NXT audience was going absolutely crazy for the guy suplexing everyone and their mom. Well not their mom but that would've been even better.
WWE audiences at times love to be shitty trolls. WHAT? I said WWE audiences tend to be trolls. WHAT?
CM PUNK
CM PUNK WHAT?
Here comes Rey Mysterio
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Just random stupid shit they do that makes no sense. Again, how are you going to blow up for a motherfucker just doing belly to belly suplexes but then he gets in the ring the next week and suddenly he's a bitch ass? IDK. Seems like trolling is just in people's DNA nowadays. You can't help it because you're either hiding behind a keyboard or a potential lawsuit. It's comical.
I mean if people were coming at him for what he supposedly did or didn't do in 2019 maybe I could see that but we're talking about 1-2 weeks of blowing this guy and then magically Corbin should get cheered lol.
To be fair, the episode where he was suplexing folks was pretaped so you can't fully trust its crowd noise was authentic.
Unless your blind you could easily tell the crowd was going ape for what he was doing.
It’d be one thing to just attack one guy for a one-off incident but correct me if I’m wrong from what I’ve read but wasn’t the state law changed because of this and he got off on an technicality?
Even ignoring all that, he’s been signed on for years and didn’t have the best reaction when they finally debuted him and only just worked an NXT house show and being removed from the NXT roster allegedly. For a guy of his resume, there’s something weird going on the last few years.
Been on the roster for years and his NXT TV debut was a count-out, they have to had known something and is he worth the investment?
And yeah nothing to do with CM Punk or any comparisons. You brought him up before I did and not relevant to this conversation.
Last edited by Badger; September 12th, 2023 at 6:35 PM.
Those comparisons were to show that WWE audiences like to troll. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out lol.It’d be one thing to just attack one guy for a one-off incident but correct me if I’m wrong from what I’ve read but wasn’t the state law changed because of this and he got off on an technicality?
Even ignoring all that, he’s been signed on for years and didn’t have the best reaction when they finally debuted him and only just worked an NXT house show and being removed from the NXT roster allegedly. For a guy of his resume, there’s something weird going on the last few years.
Been on the roster for years and his NXT TV debut was a count-out, they have to had known something and is he worth the investment?
And yeah nothing to do with CM Punk or any comparisons. You brought him up before I did and not relevant to this conversation.
He's been on the roster but he's been doing other things. Some of you act like he's just been hanging out on Rajah playing with himself while crying about CM PunkNo, he's been doing REAL wrestling. He's a young guy he has plenty of time. When he did finally debut the crowd went nuts. When he showed up in his first match suddenly half the crowd shit on him. I mean, when Bray Wyatt debuted quite a few people were chanting "Husky Harris" So I don't put too much faith in the live audience especially when new talent that aren't some fat body from the internet that decided to be a wrestler.
This is also why it's a problem putting anything NXT related on tv. You get people who don't understand developmental, you get people who don't research anything, and expect these wrestlers to be all be incredible and over like The Rock.
I’ve only caught it the one time so I’d have to go back and watch it and see if you’re right about the crowd going ape for Gable. Can’t remember off the top of my head massive chants or pops but could be wrong. From memory they were more in Corbin’s favour the longer the match went on. I did catch an article on Corbin talking about the strange reaction though.Those comparisons were to show that WWE audiences like to troll. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out lol.
He's been on the roster but he's been doing other things. Some of you act like he's just been hanging out on Rajah playing with himself while crying about CM Punk
This is also why it's a problem putting anything NXT related on tv. You get people who don't understand developmental, you get people who don't research anything, and expect these wrestlers to be all be incredible and over like The Rock.
https://www.hausofwrestling.com/2023...son-exclusive/” “And when my music hit, I got that kind of 50/50-like, we’re booing you because we boo you but also got like a good cheer, but by the time the match had started, it was 100% for me, and 100% not into what he was doing,” he recalled. “I thought I had a chance to be able to turn it back the other way, and I just got to the point it was like, I can’t fight it. I mean, otherwise, they’re just gonna hate this. So let’s just go and let them have fun, and they were definitely behind me; it was awesome.”
Last edited by Badger; September 13th, 2023 at 1:03 PM.
They were excited for Steveson when he showed up, didn't have much for him in the interim, and the crowd instantly flipped on him at the PLE when he did the Ankle Lock.
Why? Were they Jack Swagger fans?
Look at Gable. Look at Jack. Now you know.
Mustafa Ali just announced that he has left WWE.
Emma has been released.
Rick Boogs and Aaliyah have also been released.
Last edited by BGMaverick; September 21st, 2023 at 11:22 AM.
Sounds like the cuts are coming today
No, not Rick Boogs
Fuck, not Ali! Man was actually doing good stuff, too!
Elias has been released.
Lol Top Dolla
Top Dolla has been released as well.
Fingers crossed that Regal gets shitcanned again
Riddick Moss gone.
I guess Ali is the only shocking one cause wasn't he fighting Dom next week?
Yeah, he had a NA Title match scheduled for No Mercy.
I just figure they'll have a wonky finish or a title change Monday and then have the rematch at the PLE.
Not bummed about the releases, apart from Boogs. I liked that man.
the rest… eh. They weren’t being used so letting them go makes sense.
As for Ali, I was always bored by him. Wonderful human being, beautiful family, but he was a low mid card dude.
It's never cool to see someone lose their job but I've yet to see anyone that doesn't make sense.
Add Shelton Benjamin and Dolph Ziggler to the list
Figured Ziggler was a lifer...
Any word on Ezekiel?
Somewhere Chris Scott is bawling his eyes out over Benjamin
Ziggler’s been floating around, not too shocked at that one personally with the spring cleaning. He had a few great moments like the cash-in, the career vs title match with Miz and the small push with the feud with the Authority.
I’m more interested in when Elrod is going to debut!
Sorry to burst your bubble but while confirming his release, Elias has also confirmed he was Ezekiel.
Punk, is that you?
It feels like Ziggler might've been aware as he's shared a few posts on Twitter alluding to him and his brother being tag-team champions somewhere.
I suppose there might be more releases coming, but it's wild to me that talent like Karrion Kross, Braun Strowman, Dexter Lumis, Gargano, and Indy Hartwell weren't a part of the cuts today.
They just aren't lighting the world on fire, much like the other talent released.
It's still early but with that said, maybe they see more of an upside in those talents versus some wrestlers like Shelton and Dolph who are in the mid 40's and haven't really been doing anything of worth. I don't know if I'd put Kross and Rick Boogs in the same conversation. Braun is out with a neck injury so that would be kind of Test-like to fire him while injured. Not to mention his best friend just died less than a month ago.
Kross was a better fit in Impact
Ziggler will probably end up in AEW, Madcapp and Emma I can see in Impact, Ali in Impact, Shelton probably a coach somewhere, Elias probably nowhere, maybe a music career
IDK I only saw a few matches of his on Impact and it was on the PlutoTV channel so they were like a year or two old as he was in NXT at the time I saw them. I wasn't a fan of his run in NXT. But when he came back last year he looked like he belonged with Drew and Roman. He looked like a top guy working that feud with AJ Styles.
Ziggler gone, wow. Almost 20 years and I never thought I'd see the day he'd be released from WWE. Dude was always solid no matter what. The peak of his career was definitely the cash-in, but he always put on great matches. Personally, I would have loved to see him dabble in commentary or as an announcer, but wherever he goes he'll always excel.
Shelton was wasted.
Kross and Scar immediately came to mind when I'd heard cuts were coming. I used to be an immense fan of his, especially when his NXT debut was imminent, but egads he was dull. Even with Scarlett at his side with the extravagant walkout... the red lighting... the music... the DARKNESS... he was boring as fuck. I'm ranting at this point so I should just cool off so I don't convince myself he's already been let go.
This feels more like trimming the fat as opposed to covid cuts where they were releasing top tier guys like Wyatt and Strowman. Shelton, Elias, Boogs, Dolph, Emma, Madcap.....That's not exactly a list of people we're truly going to miss. Especially Shelton and Dolph. They were good bodies to job to the new NXT guy but they're old now and it's time to slide in some new Dolph-types. Chad Gable comes to mind.
Yeah I'm just glad we're not in this thread saying "Fuck WWE they wasted all these people and AEW will treat them better". They are replaceable, every single one. Except Madcap's abs. I look at him and think I need to hit the gym 10x more.
Quincy Elliot of NXT was released.
A lot of Oh no.... anyway names out there today. The jacket dude better not be fucking next.
Mace and Mansoor have been released. Dabba-Kato and Shanky have also been released.
Last edited by BGMaverick; September 21st, 2023 at 5:06 PM.
Disappointed to hear about Mace and Mansor. Hilarious talented dudes. They were the highlight of the last house show I attended.
Was a fan of Quincy until a bunch of problematic shit came out about them.
Was also a Dabba-Kato fan but recognize the dude wasn't that great.
Mansoor as well, little late catching that one... damn, that dude is so talented.
Mace and Mansoor were fucking awesome. So was Shanky. Those 3 should've been a stable.
Never understood Quincy. I think what turned me off was the gear, coming out like King Mabel just reminded me of that shitty KOTR 1995.
Dabba died when Braun squashed him on Raw Underground. Dude looked like the bad guy from Lionheart but man they fucked him up.
The only thing about Mace I remember was Brock wrecking him when Mace did commentary for raw
Defrost being revealed as CM Punk would only be the 27th most shocking thing this site has seen.
Nah Defrost is Vince…
We were all made…fools of!!!!
Dana Brooke gone. Heart goes out to @Donald
Hell I'm sure half the board are Dana Brooke fans
Ziggler and Benjamin were honestly the only surprises, I figured those two were lifers. Maybe they privately requested their releases?
Endeavour saying they need to cut costs while the mainpage says the new SmackDown/USA deal is allegedly worth $1.4B (40% increase over the FOX deal) and there’s about to be a bidding war for RAW…cool.
Natalya may have lost in 3 seconds but at least she lasted longer
I feel bad for the cuts even though I doubt they are necessary. I am not sure why Smackdown is worth over a $1 Billion dollars when it was a loser for FOX according to their books. Especially if Raw and NXT are leaving USA. Its probably Endeavor leaking shit to raise the price. They will find some dumb mark company to take it.
Figured Ali would be safe for a little bit considering he was set for a title shot at the next big nxt ple
Wonder if Emma and Dana take a page from.mandy rose
Or Mace...
I think that some of these cats should've been released ages ago. Nobody wants to see someone that isn't a piece of shit lose their job obviously but the WWE can't keep everyone in the business that can take a bump. There used to be a time where you'd be lucky to see someone in the WWE for longer than 5 years.
Yulisa Leon from NXT also gone. She recently asked for it, though. Shame as her team with Valentina Feroz was quite likeable.
He wasn't directly next, so that's a win I suppose.
Sucks to see some of these people go but if they are not being used a ton then I can see cutting down the roster a bit. I mean Ali was pretty much the only one actively on tv right and he had wanted his release in the past.
Kind of wish they would do similar to what AEW has done and let contracts run out and what not each company is going to do things their own way.
No, not Jiro!
Son of a bitch! That guy was gold
I fear for Tozawa now…
Same. Tozawa and Jiro could've made for a fun tag team...
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