News: WWE Announces They Have Released Zelina Vega

Zelina Vega is gone from WWE. It’s a bit of a surprise because the talented wrestler that has also been a manager was thought of as a consistently good performer in the women’s division. However, WWE announced her release this afternoon on their website:

“WWE has come to terms on the release of Zelina Vega. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors.”

Most of the time when somebody is released you will see their real name, but they didn’t do that in this instance. Vega’s real name is Thea Trinidad-Budgen and she’s married to WWE Superstar Aleister Black.

The tweet by WWE was at 5:56pm ET. Ten minutes before that, Vega tweeted about how she supports unionization.

It’s very unlikely that Vega would tweet that and be released ten minutes later. Her tweet could have come after a meeting with WWE officials.

A few hours later, Vega tweeted this message thanking the fans for the support.

Here’s what PWInsider’s Mike Johnson wrote about the release of Vega: “Multiple WWE sources have confirmed to PWInsider.com that today’s release of Zelina Vega was fallout from last month’s edict that talents drop their relationships with third party entities such as Twitch, Cameo, etc. in favor of World Wrestling Entertainment spearheading those relationships and fielding talents out as part of their contractual duties.”

Vega is very popular on Twitch, which she uses along with her husband and we have been reporting for the last few months about how WWE has demanded their talent shuts down their Twitch accounts. Most of them have, but some people like Paige still have them. Paige chimed in on this too.

https://twitter.com/RealPaigeWWE/status/1327387345910337538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1327387345910337538%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnodq.com%2Fnews%2F607315174.shtml

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer chimed in as well.

Vega also recently launched an OnlyFans account. No idea if WWE would approve of that.

TJR Thoughts: It’s wrong to guess what happened, but Vega is a part of the Smackdown brand and with today being Friday, maybe she met with her bosses to discuss this issue. That could have led to this announcement by WWE because Vega may have refused to shut down her Twitch account, which is likely a profitable venture for her and because of that, WWE may have felt that it was time to release her. I don’t know what happened exactly. It does seem plausible to me, though.