41 Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics In Wrestling History RANKED

13. 2020/2021 - WWE Fires Wrestlers During Pandemic Despite Making Record Profits

Mass releases - or “spring cleaning” - is as much a tradition in WWE as the King of the Ring tournament. It doesn’t happen every single year, but rather a lot.

It’s an awful exercise. The talent contract should be honoured, in a more just world, especially since many wrestlers, including AEW’s PAC, have attempted (to no avail) to cut theirs short. At a minimum, wrestlers deserve the assurance of budgeting to pay for their homes, since they spend less time there than most.

On Wednesday, April 15, WWE released multiple wrestlers and agents, amongst them Zack Ryder, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows.

Doing it at this specific time was particularly egregious. WWE labels itself as a “family”, for one, and various sons and daughters were abandoned when they had nowhere else to go. AEW was still running shows, but at that time, the long-term viability of the alternative was in question. Ring Of Honor shuttered temporarily; even if this wasn’t the case for New Japan Pro Wrestling (it was), widespread travel restrictions were in place during the scary, unknown peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Tony Khan used his Dark YouTube series as an outlet to give indie wrestlers a few paydays, the scene itself was in shut-down. He could not book them all.

The WWE decision-makers knew all of this - and it’s funny, how the very second AEW was slightly in question, the era of warehousing talent ended. Also, WWE did not need to do this. The company was well on course to secure record profits for the year.

The exact same thing happened a year later. There were more places to go, in 2021, but the fate of the world was still uncertain; the threat of lockdowns haunted day-to-day life.