As noted before, WWE released eighteen wrestlers and several office-level employees from the company this past Thursday. Among the notable wrestlers released included Keith Lee, Karrion Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux, and Nia Jax.
Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that several of the talent who were released had been dealing with serious issues over the lack of creative plans and direction from WWE’s creative team and management.
In regards to Katrina Cortez, it was reported that WWE’s creative team never had any real long term plans for her nor Sin Cara during their time together as an on-screen pairing. Following Sin Cara’s release from the company in 2019, WWE’s creative team reportedly also never had any major plans for Cortez for her return to the NXT brand.
In regards to Keith Lee and Karrion Kross, it was reported that those spoken to stated that the idea to reboot both Lee and Kross on the main roster were not their ideas. WWE officials reportedly did once consider plans to call up Scarlett to the main roster to be paired with Kross but quickly scrapped those plans for unknown reasons. It was also reported that there had been rumors backstage over Kross dealing with some backstage heat after plans for Scarlett’s call-up were axed but several WWE officials still tried to plea in his favor over the need to improve his direction and booking, which fell on deaf ears. It was also reported that many spoken to stated that Lee and Kross’ failure to get over on the main roster was due to booking-related issues and not because of their characters.
In regards to Mia Yim, it was reported that their sources stated that WWE officials did have several tentative plans for Yim to appear on shows prior to last month’s WWE Draft specials but all of those plans were dropped in the end.