This week many were shocked with the NXT cuts made by WWE. Especially since WWE seems to be in a boom period right now, and since Triple H took over creative from the retiring Vince McMahon, many felt additions to the roster were on the horizon. In fact, many additions have indeed been made and then some. These cuts proved otherwise—at least in NXT.
This week, Bodhi Hayward, Erica Yan, Damaris Griffin, Sloane Jacobs and even Ru Feng were in fact cut. Perhaps the most surprising in the bunch was of course Hayward, who was smack dab in the middle of a major NXT storyline involving Chase U…a possible love triangle involving himself and Duke Hudson fighting for the attention of one Thea Hail.
This abruptly came to a screeching halt when the announcement was made. According to a report by Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer, there was apparently more to Hayward’s release than what was originally thought. At first, the thought was that they were released because of a “lack of progression,” as Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer stated, but as it turns out there was more to come.
Here’s more of what Meltzer had to say on the releases:
“The feeling was that for all the people who were dropped, the main reason was lack of progression – they thought they weren’t improving fast enough. That’s going to be the case – they’re going to be cutting people at the 6-month mark, at the 1-year mark if they’re not progressing at a certain level. Anyone who doesn’t get to TV within two years will get cut. We’re going to get regular developmental cuts. But with Bodhi Hayward, it was more than that. It was the work ethic.”
However, as I mentioned earlier, there was more to the Hayward release than just the above it seems. Alvarez, also of the Observer, would clarify as much as he could. Apparently the issue is in fact sensitive:
“All I will say, because I don’t know all of the details, but there was stuff going on…I guess the easiest way to describe it is apparently Bodhi was a handful. So it wasn’t just ‘well, let’s get rid of this guy’ or whatever…
But I did hear from multiple people that it wasn’t just ‘we’re gonna cut some folks, we’re gonna cut this person who was right in the middle of a storyline.’ There was more to Bodhi’s story. That’s really all I can say because I don’t know what the more is. But you know, you got a bunch of guys and whatever and they’re in Florida and there’s a loop and god only knows what can happen.”
