Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News - I’m Oli Davis.
WWE Releases Since October 29th, six wrestlers have been
released from WWE: Emma, Darren Young, Summer Rae, Sawyer Fulton, Leo Gao and James Ellsworth.
And now, after a week of sudden squashes or people turning on their henchmen/tag team
partners, it feels like another slew of WWE releases could be on the way.
Singh Brothers WWE Update Thankfully, after their beatdown from Jinder
Mahal on this week’s Smackdown, the Singh Brothers appear to be OK.
Although PWInsider reported there have been backstage discussions about replacing them
as part of Jinder’s act, it’s expected they’ll go to 205 Live or NXT instead of
being released from the company.
And their positions are safe for the immediate future, with them revealing on Twitter that
they’re working WWE’s live event dates this weekend in South America still very much
with Mahal: “Walking into Peru tonight & reminding you
to throw your Two’s up.
🇵🇪 Your future TWO TIME @WWE CHAMPION, The Modern Day MAHARRRRRRRAJA!
#WWEClashOfChampions #WWEPeru” Jim Johnston Released
Sadly, one person who does appear to have been released, though, is legendary WWE music
composer Jim Johnston - the man behind the entrance music for Stone Cold Steve Austin,
Chris Jericho, The Rock, Randy Orton, Kane, Triple H, Bret Hart, Big Show, Mr. McMahon,
The Undertaker - practically every single one of your favourite wrestler themes from
pre-2011 WWE.
And Stephanie McMahon’s.
The news comes from ThemeTitan on Twitter, the self-proclaimed ‘original community
of WWE entrance theme fans’, first tweeting: Jim Johnston has been released by WWE and
then following up with a longer statement, where they claimed WWE decided “not to renew
his contract that expired today…” and that “this was a forced release as Jim was
very keen to keep working with the company”.
ThemeTitan allege Johnston’s release “has been the ongoing will of Neil Lawi, John Alicastro
and Michael Lauri for some time…[as] John and Michael wanted to totally overhaul WWE’s
musical output and replace all Jim Johnston creations with their own.”
John Alicastro and Neil Lawi are the songwriting duo CFO$, who have been with WWE since 2012,
and are behind the entrance themes of Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe and more.
And we’re still not done with the potential WWE releases…
Lio Rush WWE Status Lio Rush officially signed with WWE on August
21st with much fanfare from the independent scene, and he debuted on NXT in October.
But he hasn’t wrestled on TV for over a month since, and it seems to be because of
some considerable backstage heat.
When WWE released Emma just days after her two losses to Asuka, Rush angered the locker
room by tweeting: “I guess these are the things that happen
when you’re not TRULY ready for Asuka RETROSPECTIVELY APPROPRIATE CLOWN FACE EMOJI
Emma had only lost her job hours before, and the wrestling world roundly criticised him
for making the joke.
Lio reportedly came very close to getting released there and then, but him immediately
deleting the tweet and posting an apology is thought to have saved him from also being
cut.
PWInsider then confirmed that the reason Rush hasn’t been seen in NXT since is “exactly
what you think it is - the Emma tweet.”
Now Reddit user RichardMagpies has pointed out Rush has removed all WWE and NXT wording
from his Twitter profile, and he also wasn’t at Wednesday’s NXT tapings for the next
month’s worth of TV.
Eva Marie removing WWE references from her social media foreshadowed her eventually leaving
the company, but Karl Anderson recently doing the same never amounted to anything.
A fan on Twitter, however, has revealed Rush is - at least right now - still on the NXT
tours, appearing at last night’s live event in Lakeland.
Will we get Cody Rhodes vs Daniel Bryan at a Ring of Honor event next year?
And there’s been some big NXT news!
Click the videos to the left to find out, press subscribe and support WrestleTalk - order
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I’ve been Oli Davis, and that was wrestling.