Several names were released from the WWE roster on Friday, February 7, much to the surprise of fans, performers, and more in the community. News about the cuts started rolling out Friday evening, and reporting on the exact details followed. The full list of releases are Authors of Pain, Paul Ellering, Sonya Deville, Cedric Alexander, and Blair Davenport.
Fightful Select issued a report that included a lot of details about the release. According to their sources calls for the releases were made “around the start of SmackDown.”
Performers like Alexander and Deville were frequently leveraged on television, while others like AOP and Davenport rarely stepped in front of the camera. The last time Davenport competed was on November 22 when she took part in a first-round match in the tournament to crown the inaugural WWE Women’s United States Champion.
Alexander was consistently featured on WWE NXT, with fans having a positive response to his presentation on the brand. The last match he had was against Ethan Page on January 28. Deville was a part of Pure Fusion Collective. While fans liked the idea of Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark working with a potential mouthpiece in Deville, the latter did not fit well with workers the level of Baszler and Stark. Deville last competed on February 3 on Main Event in a losing effort to Natalya. Deville’s contract was set to expire in a few weeks, and she was informed that it will not be renewed.
Cedric Alexander and Blair Davenport will get a lot of interest
Fans expect both Alexander and Davenport to get a lot of attention from other organizations. There were immediate calls for Alexander to join All Elite Wrestling where he can re-join MVP, Shelton Benjamin, and Bobby Lashley, bringing The Hurt Syndicate back to full power. However, the question would be if Alexander would make that move as Tony Khan made some controversial statements about Alexander’s wife, Big Swole, back in 2022.
Davenport’s track record includes several of the biggest promotions in wrestling. She’s stepped into the ring for STARDOM, AEW, Pro Wrestling Eve and several others. It would be interesting if a company like TNA Wrestling went after Davenport, especially after losing a top performer like Jordynne Grace to WWE. AEW could make a play for her as well, but that promotion is struggling to feature its already packed roster of women.
The Authors of Pain may be completely done with wrestling. Fightful Select pointed out that the duo came back into WWE with “a bit of heat due to some of their outside projects.” Allegedly, some individuals helped financially support some projects under AOP and didn’t get those funds back.
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