10 WWE Releases That Actually HELPED A Wrestler

4. Mercedes Moné

Sasha Banks was a 6-time Women’s Champion and 3-time tag champ who main-evented the first night of WrestleMania 37 - which is one of only 2 times a women’s match has closed a night of 'Mania.

In May 2022, Banks and Naomi, then the reigning Women’s Tag-Team Champions, walked out of WWE during a Raw broadcast, forcing a scramble to rebook the show and a protracted (and futile) attempt to get both back into the company.

Finally free to wrestle elsewhere, the newly christened Mercedes Moné would win the IWGP Women’s World Championship (defeating another former and future released WWE superstar, Kairi Sane) before an injury derailed her run. She would return and join AEW in 2024, where she embarked on an epic sprint as the TBS Champion. Complete with her new belt collector gimmick, Moné captured women’s straps across numerous promotions, racking up more than a dozen titles and enlisting a harem to carry her belts to the ring.

The unprecedented images of the CEO sporting up to 14 different titles simultaneously were burned into fans’ retinas throughout 2025.

It initially was hard to envision someone with Mercedes’ WWE resumé doing significantly better after leaving (a lateral move as a multi-time World Champion in another promotion would have been expected), but she exceeded that and has cemented herself as one of the biggest women’s wrestlers on the planet during the past 2 years.