News On WWE Releasing Several Main Roster And NXT Talents

Following Endeavor’s acquisition of the WWE and WWE’s merger with UFC to form a single company called TKO Holdings Group, it was expected that several of the company’s employees will be let go, including talents from the main roster as well as from NXT and employees from head quarters as both UFC and the WWE already have the same departments in place and it would be more cost-efficient to have those same departments join into one and the idea was that WWE was looking to cut back about $50 million to $100 million in expenses.

This past Thursday, WWE had their latest round of talent cuts from both the main roster and from NXT, which included Dolph Ziggler, Mustafa Ali, Elias and Shelton Benjamin from the main roster and Quincy Elliott, Shanky, Bryson Montana and Yulisa Leon from NXT, among others.

Dave Meltzer mentioned on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason these cuts were made is TKO Holdings was looking to release talents that were making main roster money, but were not being used on the main roster with the idea that they weren’t going to be used in the future as well. Talents that are released from the main roster in WWE has the traditional 90-day non-compete clause, meaning they can sign with any other promotion starting December 20th, while talents from NXT has the 30-day non-compete clause.