WWE Releases Multiple Former Champions

There have been many WWE superstars released by the company, including former champions.

The roster cuts in WWE are continuing less than a week after the Royal Rumble.

Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson have been released by WWE, according to PWInsider. The team had multiple runs with WWE and were most recently part of the NXT brand although they were not being used that often.

While in WWE, Gallows & Anderson were two-time Raw Tag Team Champions. They were aligned with AJ Styles and Michin (Mia Yim) as part of The Club as well, but that group eventually fizzled out.

Gallows has been a part of WWE in multiple roles over the last 20 years including the memorable Festus character and he also played a fake version of Kane briefly. Gallows was also in the Straight Edge Society group led by CM Punk, which was a way to get him away from being Festus.

The team of Gallows & Anderson has had a lot of success in other companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling and TNA while also working for AEW as well.

Giovanni Vinci, who used to be in the Imperium group, has also been released, as reported by Fightful. After Vinci was attacked by Ludwig Kaiser in 2024, Vince was put on SmackDown on his own, they tried to give him a gimmick as a rich playboy type of guy and it didn’t work that well.

During his NXT days, Vinci was a two-time NXT Tag Team Champion when he was known as Fabian Aichner and Kaiser was known as Marcel Barthel.

Isla Dawn has also been released by WWE. She posted this message on her Instagram story: “Here for a good time not a long time. See you in 90”

Dawn was a former Women’s Tag Team Champion with Alba Fyre.

WWE Releases Other Veteran Superstars

There were more WWE superstars released on February 7th and the news of their releases were reported as SmackDown was going on.

* Cedric Alexander

* AOP – Akam & Rezar

* WWE Hall of Famer Paul Ellering

* Blair Davenport

* Sonya Deville was informed that her soon-to-be-expiring contract would not be extended, so it was essentially a release. Deville had the longest tenure with WWE since she was in the 2015 season of Tough Enough and was hired after the show was done.

Regarding Alexander, it has been reported that AEW’s Bobby Lashley, MVP and Shelton Benjamin will likely suggest that the company hires Alexander. That trio was with Alexander in WWE as The Hurt Business and now they are succeeding as The Hurt Syndicate in AEW.

TJRWrestling will keep updating the website as we learn of more WWE releases.