Select Answers: Details on WWE Releases

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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Has WWE changed the way they communicate releases to the media to seem more gentle? Lots of posts about Legentil Activity yesterday

I know that had been reported elsewhere, but I've never been given any real insight or indication on how the releases themselves go. There was a lot of misinformation about why we used the term "departures." It was our phrasing, not WWE's. We were still working to find out if Tegan Nox and Indi Hartwell were released or had their contracts set to expire. Clearly Triple H took issue with the difference in terminology earlier this year. We wanted to be sure.

Should we expect more releases soon or no?

Any accounts or outlets that say things like "expect more in the spring or fall, etc" are guessing. We've covered hundreds of releases, expirations and departures since 2020, and at no point was another "round" ever indicated. That isn't usually the type of thing that makes it through the company. They were using Indi Hartwell a week before she was released and Baron Corbin was at the Netflix commercial shoot six days before.

How involved was HHH in the latest departures? I can maybe understand Nox bc she hasn't been used in a while (even tho he seemed to have a soft spot for her in NXT after overcoming injuries) but Indi & Corbin are more confusing imo. Indi had a (pre-taped) match the same day she got let go & Corbin has basically done everything asked of him.

I wasn't told if he had a say directly, but two out of the three were people who weren't being used on TV at all. It's hard to believe that someone they had firm and big creative plans for would be let go if someone in control of creative wanted them to stay. But then again, Mustafa Ali was planned to win the NXT North American Title and was cut.