Pro Wrestling: WWE Cuts Galore!

First things first, the tag team of The Highlanders(Rory and Robbie McAllister) were released today. Rory McAllister made it almost 5 months beyond when I thought he was going to be fired.

Back in March the WWE was in Orlando for Wrestlemania. This was a HUGE pro wrestling weekend with seven shows from four different wrestling companies in a 4 day period. I was there, but I did not go to any of the three TNA(Total Nonstop Action) shows. On the March 27th live edtion of TNA Impact the cameras panned to Rory McAllister who was in attendance and the announcers pointed him out as pro wrestler Russell Murray(his real name). Within minutes Rory received a text message from someone in WWE management informing him that he was shown on TV and that he had to leave immediately. He complied. The next day he was sent home. Wrestlemania is the biggest show of the year, and with it comes the biggest pay day of the year for the wrestlers. Rory who is not a big name wrestler in any way shape or form, reportedly would have made $5,000 for working that one day. He did not receive a Wrestlemania paycheck, sucks to be him.

The day that he was sent home lots of people were talking about it as I was waiting in line to go to the Friday Ring of Honor show. At that point in time the rumor wasn't that he was sent home, but that he was fired. I guess it finally caught up with him.

Stevie Richards was also released today. He's never done anything to impress me, but there was a period of time in the mid to late 90's where he was an independent wrestling icon. I remember reading about him doing a show stealing ladder match at some random indie show and almost breaking his neck. In that period of time I had never seen him perform, but I wanted to so bad. By the time I finally saw him in his 1997 run in WCW he barely wrestled due to the repeated neck injuries and surgeries. At that time he "retired" for a brief while due to the injuries, but many people around him questioned the legitimacy of that claim and thought that he was just trying to get out of his WCW contract.

A couple of years later he shows up in WWE and had a lame gimmick. WWE eventually brought him back as part of the new ECW branded TV show on the Sci-Fi network, and they had him work almost exclusively with current WWE World Champion CM Punk. There was even a series of vignettes talking about Richards neck injuries, and how he was in the main event of the very first ECW pay per view. It seemed like a slow build to him winning the fairly useless ECW Championship, but within a couple of weeks he was back to losing quickly and decisively on a weekly basis. Then in September he took about 5 months off due to having throat surgery. He will be 37 this fall, and I imagine his televised wrestling career is over. He'll always have a special place in my heart for that period of time where he was an American independent wrestling superstar.

Last but not least, 21 year old Colin Delaney was released today. He's my height, and only weighs about 15 more pounds than me. Suffice to say, he is not your typical sized WWE wrestler.

Delaney was given the underdog gimmick. I mean, he was really an underdog. He did not get any offense in his matches for a couple of months. It's a classic pro wrestling gimmick of building up the geek until the fans love him and really want to see him win. He didn't really get over, and then a month or so ago he turned heel on pay per view, and nobody cared. This release was just a matter of time.

But hey, he's only 21, and he was on WWE television! He should continue to get paid a decent amount to work on indie shows. Maybe he will be coming to your town soon!