The unfortunate news of roster cuts hit WWE on Friday, February 7. Cedric Alexander, Sonya Deville, Blair Davenport, AOP, and Paul Ellering were all removed from the roster. The news didn’t stop there as they were followed by Giovanni Vinci, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows were confirmed as released.
Giovanni Vinci had an old run while in WWE, almost a tale of two stories. While fans saw him as a talented performer with strong in-ring, he was booked as the scapegoat for Imperium time and time again. The first hint that things would not end well for him was when he was left in NXT while Kaiser and Gunther were moved to the main roster. When he finally did join them in 2022, he was quickly presented as the one that Gunther would take his frustrations out on him. This led to him being kicked out of Imperium and shipped over to SmackDown.
Vinci collected only one singles win in WWE in 15 attempts since moving up to the main roster. The last time he was on television was back in September when he was defeated by Apollo Crews in 97 seconds. This came one week after being defeated in just 4 seconds. Vinci was never positioned to be a credible performer and it looked like WWE was intent on embarrassing him. Vinci’s last match was a SmackDown dark match on December 13, where he lost to Luke Gallows, who was also released.
Karl Anderson is currently injured and unable to perform
Even though WWE has depth in the tag team division, the promotion doesn’t do the best job featuring them. Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows could have helped with that, but this release cuts an experienced duo from the roster.
Fightful Select revealed some interesting information about this release. Anderson is still injured and is expected to be three-to-six months away from being cleared. WWE doesn’t typically release performers when they are still injured.
Releases are potentially tied to WWE NXT call ups
The Fightful Select report also mentioned that these call up “tied to a new of call-ups being brought into the main roster in 2025.” NXT has a stacked roster of its own, and there’s expectations that performers like Roxanne Perez are main roster bound.
There was some initial confusion about Isla Dawn’s status with the company after she posted on social media that she was released, but that news was confirmed as well. She and Alba Fyre won the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, but after losing the titles back to Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair they were seldom on television.
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