10 Most Shocking WWE Releases Ever
3. Zelina Vega
A checkpoint in discourse history because it briefly brought conversation back around to wrestler unionisation before - as always - it disappeared back into the swamp like everything else, Zelina Vega's late-2020 exit came following a grim edict WWE laid down upon its "independent contractors" about outside earnings.
Vega was making a more-than-tidy sum as a Twitch streamer, and elected to keep that enterprise in the face of the ruling. She was subsequently released for her choice.
There was much to pick at from this - if performers are making money elsewhere, are WWE even paying enough? If they need creative expression in their hobby, what does it say about their f*cking job? to name but two loud rhetorical questions - but fundamentally it came back down to the company's classification of its talent.
If wrestlers were paid up, pensioned and protected employees, this sort of decision would be in keeping with most corporate enterprises and a near-reasonable request. But they're not, it wasn't, and Vega suffered the consequences.