8 Reasons Friday's WWE Releases Were Justified

5. Alex Riley

Alex Riley Fired.jpg
wwe.com

RAGE.

Another individual who had made wheel-spinning their main activity in World Wrestling Entertainment, Alex Riley at least made vague attempts to revive his fortunes through a mixture of rage, rage and a little bit of rage.

Injuries played their part in derailing him in the first place, but a successful stint as a commentator on NXT seemed to give him something approaching a new lease of life.

For whatever reason, Riley decided to upset the applecart by taking to Twitter and speaking of the need to #FreeRiley. This led to him getting squashed a couple of times by Kevin Owens on NXT, getting injured and then getting freed.

Ultimately, #FreeRiley was successful. His last televised match came against Shinsuke Nakamura, and if that isn't a way to go out I do not know what is. Riley was in limbo, a jobber with no real credibility or momentum. He had been surpassed in the enhancement ranks by a number of NXT talents, and the further down the pecking order one goes the less likely it is one will stick around.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.