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Select Answers: WWE releases and non-competes, reasons

Added 2025-05-06 16:00:15 +0000 UTC

Welcome to Select Answers, a short feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.

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Are the Nakamura leaving WWE rumors true

If it is, nobody in WWE has heard it. The outlet that posted that reads like AI writing garbage. I haven't heard anything like that so far. Always be careful where you get your news from.

Do you have a similar report on Meltzer’s report of the NXT cuts being those who “weren’t working hard enough in training” and used the term “lazy”

I haven't heard that report, and haven't heard that specific reason for anyone. NXT cuts often come down to that, or the company not seeing upward trajectory for the talent. Whether any of these talent fell into that category, I do not know.

Hi Sean, regards the released talent from WWE how enforceable are these no-compete clauses for example if hypothetically AEW wanted to bring say Dakota Kai in and immediately put her on TV is there anything WWE could do really to stop it?

The ones from this past week are very enforceable, because they're only "non-competes" in name. The reality is, the talent are still under WWE contract and paid for that period. It isn't like the "non-competes" that many fight against, where they're prohibited from working elsewhere, AND aren't getting paid. For example, Brock Lesnar wanted out of his WWE contract early in 2004. They slapped a huge non-compete on him and weren't paying him. He fought it and won.