With all this news of people wanting their releases from WWE, not being happy on the flagship rosters, and not wanting to be moved to RAW or SmackDown, there’s talk of who will be cut in 2020. Yes, the early-year WWE releases are a wrestling tradition.
People get released throughout the year but it’s spotty. Sometimes, people are released like ACH was while other times you forget they were still on the roster. The best example of that is late-2008 Armando Estrada. He was being used early on in the year and by the end of that summer, he just wasn’t seen as much.
So, who are possible on the WWE future endeavor list in those first few months leading into WrestleMania 36? Here are a few of the picks that interest me.
The Colóns: An Obvious Pick For WWE
This duo is at the top of my list. Not because I dislike the team, I actually dig this generation of Colons. It’s just that you don’t see them as often. The last time they were in WWE, it was for dark matches on SmackDown. They were fodder since the end of 2017 before starting back with the family’s WWC promotion in Puerto Rico in either late-2018 or early-2019.
As a matter of fact, Puerto Rican legend and WWE alum Savio Vega mentioned as much in talking with Hannibal TV. The topic was actually on WWE contacting Carlito for a return but he touched on both Primo and Epico wrestling in WWC for most of 2019. Carlito’s been busy all over the place and his cousin and brother have been really active on WWC’s big events.
Just last week, the three of them had their first three-way dance for Epico’s WWC Universal Championship at Night of Champions. Expect them to be released in December. I don’t really see a reason why WWE would keep them if they’re not using them and they haven’t been aggressive in wanting their releases or hinting at jumping to competitors.
As a matter of fact, they haven’t asked for their releases recently.
Mike and Maria Kanellis
Now, this is a trickier release. Mike Kanellis requested his and Maria’s release last month but it hasn’t happened. There are some interesting moves in wrestling right now and it seems like this is a pair that WWE can’t part with at the moment. They’ve been on national television recently and that means there’s still some shine on them. They could sit out the no-compete period before making an appearance in AEW or a return to Impact Wrestling and still have some of that national TV gloss on them.
It’s something WWE can’t want at the moment. Actually, there was a time when a star would’ve been jobbed into the ground before being released to damage their marketability elsewhere. I mean, who wants a wrestler who lost on Shotgun Saturday Night, HeAT, and RAW, right? That is unless the company knows that wrestler’s value.
I believe this would be the case with Mike Kanellis. He hasn’t been power-jobbed or anything but this current storyline isn’t something that would make someone go “Oh, yeah that guy was really good in WWE a few months ago!” No, he and Maria would be departing on a soft crash TV storyline.
If Mike and Maria Kanellis are granted their release, I’m going with late January or early February. You know, just in case they need an extra elimination for Royal Rumble.
Luke Harper
This is a talent that I expected to go pretty far once the Wyatt Family was broken up. Obviously, a period of solo build-up but in-ring, he looked impressive as a heavyweight talent. Things didn’t fall into place for Harper and with the bloated nature of the flagship brands, it was a case of waiting a little further down the line. Or the rare crisis period where every major star on a brand ends up injured and some guys need to be pushed post haste.
If WWE doesn’t end up moving him to NXT where he could be in the mix of things, I can see Harper gone by February. He’s not someone WWE would want to release at the moment since other companies tend to know what to do with people they release. An example would be Christian and Jeff Hardy in Impact Wrestling.
It’s not even that WWE doesn’t know what to do with talents but there are just too many people to find something for everyone. When a creative team starts stretching itself thin trying to utilize everyone, some talents are going to get the flimsy end of the stick—or in the case of those on this list, little to nothing at all.
