Reason Behind WWE's Latest NXT Cuts

WWE engaged in their annual post-WrestleMania releases over the last two weeks, with several top stars from the main roster being let go including Aleister Black, Kairi Sane, Santos Escobar, The Motor City Machine Guns, and more. Among these names were also a list of talents from NXT including Andre Chase, Dante Chen, Tyson Dupont, Tyriek Igwe, Tyra Mae Steele, Chris Island, Sirena Linton, Trill London, Malik Blade, Luca Crusifino, and Carlee Bright. The reasoning behind WWE’s NXT cuts has now been revealed.

While it was learned this week that TKO had asked WWE to cut wrestlers in order to reduce payroll on the main roster (leading to the departures of wrestlers such as Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods, who were asked to restructure their deal), the NXT cuts were to do with WWE’s opinions on their upside and talent. On X, F4WOnline’s Bryan Alvarez explained that the NXT releases were more connected to “talent evaluation” than anything from a budgetary standpoint, which is something that happens fairly frequently in WWE’s developmental system. 

It was learned this week that the particular names released from WWE were selected by the likes of Triple H & Nick Khan rather than TKO.