6 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Nov 29)

1. Using Fired Wrestlers As Cheap Heat

Edge quote
WWE

During the past 20 months, WWE has released dozens upon dozens of wrestlers (more than 70 this year alone), citing “budget cuts” as the main reason – while the company has gone on to pull in record amounts of revenue.

It’s bad enough when someone loses their job, but WWE decided to use some of their recent releases as methods of getting cheap heat on Raw. First up, Liv Morgan referenced her two friends (Sarah Logan and Ruby Riott) as being released because of Becky Lynch’s “fat contract.” The idea was to show that Becks is a self-absorbed, overpaid heel, which is what she used to despise.

That was tacky, but then less than an hour later, Edge berated Miz for leaving Raw to further his own personal endeavours while leaving his tag partner (John Morrison) high and dry to get fired. That one really cut deep, as JoMo was released less than two weeks ago and is still under a non-compete clause.

We’ve seen CM Punk use fired wrestlers as a plot point in going after John Laurinaitis before, but that was him attacking an authority figure who actually fired guys like Harry Smith. This was just making inside references to people WWE fired and trying to blame the heels for the releases.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.