6 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (July 6)

4. Why Was He Released Again?

Drew McIntyre Heath Slater
WWE.com

So technically, the superstars who were released back in April are still WWE employees for at least a few more days, which means we could see them at any time… and indeed we did Monday night.

Heath Slater made his return to Raw at Dolph Ziggler’s invitation to confront his former 3MB mate Drew McIntyre. Slater delivered a compelling promo about how he watched Drew win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35 and cried at home. He noted that when McIntyre was released in 2014, he called him every day and met up with him, but Heath observed that Drew wasn’t there for him after he was released in April.

Slater said that “I got kids” wasn’t a gimmick, it’s real life for him and his two daughters. The promo alone showed that Heath is actually really good at making you care about him. Here’s a guy who – unless WWE pulls a Drake Maverick and re-signs him – is days away from being a free agent, and you couldn’t help but feel for him.

So, setting aside the other stuff from earlier and just looking at this segment from Heath’s perspective, why can’t WWE figure out how to use him for more than a few weeks at a time, or after they’ve already jettisoned him?

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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.