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WWE Announces Several Superstars Have Been Released – Updated List

By John Canton • Published 15th April 2020
TJR Wrestling

The following list of superstars have been released by WWE. This is due to WWE wanting to try to save money due to wanting to save money as a result of the health crisis that the world is dealing with right now. The WWE.com website is providing info on who is being released. WWE has come to terms on the release of:

Rusev (Miroslav Barnyashev)

Drake Maverick (James Curtin)

Curt Hawkins (Brian Myers)

Karl Anderson (Chad Allegra)

Luke Gallows (Drew Hankinson)

Zack Ryder (Matthew Cardona) – Ryder is engaged to Chelsea Green, who is in NXT.

EC3 (Michael Hutter)

Lio Rush (Lionel Green)

Eric Young (Jeremy Fritz)

Heath Slater (Heath Miller)

Aiden English (Matthew Rehwoldt) – English has been an announcer on 205 Live for over a year and wrestled before that.

Sarah Logan (Sarah Rowe) – She is married to Erik of the Viking Raiders tag team.

Erick Rowan (Joseph Ruud)

Mike Kanellis (Mike Bennett)

Maria Kanellis (Maria Kanellis-Bennett)

No Way Jose (Levis Valenzuela)

Primo Colon (Eddie Colon)

Epico Colon (Orlando Colon Nieves)

WWE wished them all the best in their future endeavors.

Rusev tweeted this to indicate that he has been released. Shortly after that, his name was on the WWE list. I believe Rusev’s contract was up soon, he did not re-sign and now he’s moving on. Rusev’s wife Lana did re-sign for five years with WWE last year.

Some WWE NXT wrestlers have also been released:

* Deonna Purrazzo

* Aleksandar Jaksic

It was also reported by PWInsider that the following Producers have been released: Kurt Angle, Billy Kidman, Mike Rotunda, Dave Finlay, Pat Buck, Shawn Daivari, Scott Armstrong, Sarah Stock, Shane Helms and Lance Storm. A Producer’s role is to help the talent put together matches, promos and other segments. Due to there not being live events right now, there is less of a need for Producers. A lot of them could return in the future.

According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, the Producers have likely been furloughed meaning they could be brought back in the future.

Referee Mike Chioda has also been released and he may have been furloughed as well. He started in WWE in 1989.

In a WWE statement earlier today, they announced that some people released today will be furloughed meaning it would be more like a leave of absence and they would be brought back, but we don’t know if that goes for wrestlers as well.

We will update this post throughout the day if there are more names that are released. I’ll add social media comments at the bottom of this post as well.

https://twitter.com/WWEMaverick/status/1250493936185102339