Chelsea Green was one of the ten wrestlers cut by WWE last week despite having signed a new three-year contract five months previously. While some wrestlers would take a break to regroup, the former Impact Knockouts Champion has wasted no time attempting to secure her name. Additionally, she wants the nickname she used when wrestling as Laurel Van Ness in Impact Wrestling. On April 15, the same day she was released, Green filed trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for “Chelsea Green,” which is also her real name, and “Hot Mess.” While she should be able to take possession of both, there may be some delay in securing her name because WWE currently has their own application, but it hasn’t been approved because they didn’t obtain written consent from Green at the time, and unless she gives this by August 16, 2021, it will be abandoned. Green is already accepting bookings for when her non-compete clause expires and is referring to herself on her Pro Wrestling Tees page as The Hot Mess. This could indicate she plans to bring back her popular alter-ego Laurel Van Ness, best known for her disheveled look and smeared makeup.

Ahead of the release of Netflix’s $70 million budgeted movie Army of the Dead, Batista, who plays the lead Scott Ward, has begun doing media promoting its release. During a recent interview with Justice Con, he would discuss more than just the film, and spoke about if he’d be prepared to come out of his wrestling retirement and return to the ring following his No Holds Barred match against Triple H at WrestleMania 35.

It certainly sounds like Batista is sincere when he says he won’t be coming out of retirement. Still, it is likely most of the countless wrestlers who went back on their word presumably felt the same way at one time. The big difference in Batista’s case though he has a successful and highly paid movie career to focus on instead.

Last year WWE introduced Retribution, a group hellbent on destroying WWE. In the storyline, the members were unhappy with how they’d been treated in the WWE system and were out for revenge. It wasn’t a terrible idea on paper, but fans mocked the group after WWE botched the execution and gave the members awful outfits and bizarre names.

It was a bad sign when Mercedes Martinez, who was to go by the name Retaliation, requested to be removed from the stable, saying being part of the group didn’t fit with her career goals. Despite this, the remaining members would try and make the best of it and were subsequently joined by Mustafa Ali as the group’s leader. Nevertheless, the faction remained a laughingstock, and WWE pulled the plug during the Fastlane pre-show by having members T-Bar and Mace double chokeslammed Ali.

While Ali has now returned to the singles competition, likely hoping he can distance himself from the group, T-Bar (Dominik Dijakovic) and Mace (Dio Maddin) remain together with WWE currently teasing them joining The Hurt Business. This had left Slapjack (Shane Thorne) and Reckoning (Mia Yim) out in the cold. However, today it has been reported by PWInsider that the pair are now considered to be part of the SmackDown roster.

It wasn’t stated if either will continue with their Retribution names and outfits or be allowed to return to their previous NXT characters. Although given how both were treated as secondary members of the failed stable, it’s most likely the change of brands is considered a fresh start.

Mickie James was one of the wrestlers cut by WWE on April 15. While some releases were unexpected, James’ wasn’t due to her not wrestling a singles match since breaking her nose while facing Zelina Vega back on September 21, 2020. The 41-year-old’s former Divas and Women’s Champion’s only match since then was as part of the women’s Royal Rumble. Although it was apparent WWE had no plans for her as she didn’t make any eliminations and was likely only involved to help fill the numbers.

What’s next for James remains to be seen, but with her husband Nick Aldis being the current NWA World Champion and having significant influence, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see her join Billy Corgan’s promotion. However, she may not see her future being strictly in the ring. As it turns out that her two nights on commentatory during the NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver Pre-Shows which went under the radar of many fans, was her official tryout for a full-time commentary role. Her tryout consisted of calling Zoey Stark vs. Toni Storm on night 1 and Drake Maverick & Killian Dain vs. Breezango on night 2, but clearly, WWE wasn’t impressed enough to give her the position.

Female commentators are still not standard in pro wrestling. Still, WWE did take the initiative by giving Renee Young the opportunity to be the first woman to call an entire episode of Raw. She’d go on to become a constant behind the announcer desk but chose to depart the company last year. Additionally, Beth Phoenix joined the NXT announce team in 2019 and has been a regular since, with it being hard now to imagine the show without her.

Last weekend during the main event of WrestleMania 37 Night 1, Michael Cole messed up the call when Bianca Belair pinned Sasha Banks to become SmackDown Women’s Champion. What happened was Belair hit her Kiss of Death finisher and pined banks for the three counts. However, Cole would shout, “A kickout! A kickout by Sasha.” Thankfully’s Cole’s long-term announcer partner Corey Graves would make the save, saying, “No, she won.” You can watch this play out for yourself below.

[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”QHeBnq4t” upload-date=”2021-04-18T22:03:00.000Z” name=”Cole Blows Belair’s WrestleMania Win” description=”” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]

It was an embarrassing mistake for Cole and caused him to trend on Twitter due to so many fans calling him out and saying he had ruined Belair’s big moment. Now though, Graves has again come to his colleague’s aid and told fans on his podcast to leave Cole alone while trying to explain why the mistake happened.

Cole became a WWE announcer in 1997 after initially being a backstage interviewer. Since then, he has called countless hours of wrestling, and it’s expected someone will make a bad call on occasion. It’s just unfortunate that it occurred during an event that will live on forever, rather than a random episode of SmackDown. Although with Peacock happy to make edits to WWE content due to controversial content, perhaps they’ll step in and save Cole’s blushes for future viewings

Peyton Royce and Billie Kay were among ten wrestlers released by WWE on April 15th, 2021, ending their six-year run with the company. The former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions were on separate brands at the time of their releases. Still, they will always be associated due to their popular The IIconics double-act bringing them to fame.

Despite having a non-compete clause, the duo is wasting no time planning a non-WWE future by updating their Twitter handles with new names. Peyton Royce, whose real name is Cassandra McIntosh, is now going by @CassieLee, while Billie Kay is now using her real name @JessicaMcKay. This is the name she used on the US and Australian independent circuit being signing with WWE.

What the future holds for the pair remains to be seen, as they have the option of reuniting as a tag team or pursuing singles careers. However, there is already speculation that the former Peyton Royce could end up in AEW due to being married to Shawn Spears, giving her a potential opening.

Billie Kay was among ten wrestlers WWE released from their contracts yesterday. Her release was a surprise as while not one of the top female workers in the company, she was popular with fans and had just competed at WrestleMania teaming with Carmella in a tag team turmoil match.

Now, Fightful Select has reported that the Australian wasn’t highly regarded by one of the WWE’s most powerful men, Executive Producer Kevin Dunn. Reportedly he didn’t see much in her and saw a ceiling for her in the company. While it isn’t known if this directly played into Kay’s release, having someone as influential as Dunn against her progression would always hold her back.

What lies ahead for Kay remains to be seen, but considering her longtime IIconics tag team partner and friend Petyon Royce was also cut, they’ll likely reunite. Additionally, with Royce being married to Shawn Spears, there will be speculation the duo could make their way to AEW when their non-compete clauses expire.

Samoa Joe had been working on commentary since suffering two concussions in early 2020. One occurred during an eight-man tag match on Raw, and the other was less than a month later after hitting his head on a table during a commercial shoot. While his announcing work had been highly praised when WWE made changes to their announce teams due to the hiring of former ESPN host Adnan Virk this week, Joe was left without a role.

Yesterday he, along with nine other wrestlers, were released from their WWE contracts. It has now been reported by Fightful Select that the former two-time NXT Champion was still not medically cleared to compete at the time of his release. With him no longer needed behind the announce desk and unable to wrestle, WWE seemingly saw him surplus to requirements.

It isn’t known if his medical status will cause him issues returning to the ring when his 90-day non-compete clause expires. WWE and their doctors are known to be extremely cautious nowadays with head injuries, so potentially a non-WWE-associated doctor may clear him in the future.

Former football punter Pat McAfee began working with WWE on their NXT brand in 2018, initially as a pre-show analyst and then a wrestler. He’d first face off against Adam Cole in a singles match at a TakeOver event and then compete in a WarGames match alongside Danny Burch, Oney Lorcan, and Pete Dunne against Undisputed Era.

With WWE revamping their announce teams and Corey Graves moved to Raw, this left a chair next to Michael Cole on SmackDown free. WWE has now announced that McAfee will be taking that seat as an analyst. With the news public, McAfee has taken to Twitter, declaring that being a commentator on SmackDown is a dream come true.

WWE’s announce team changes came from bringing in former ESPN host Adnan Virk as the new play-by-play announcer for WWE RAW at the request of Nick Khan. Due to his lack of experience, it was decided to put Corey Graves with him, and thus presenting McAfee a dream opportunity.

WWE put NXT against AEW’s Dynamite show in an attempt to stop them from becoming a long-term competitor. It didn’t work as TNT ended up renewing Dynamite and offering AEW an additional show due later this year. With changes coming to the USA Network, the decision was made to move NXT to Tuesday’s, and thus the Wednesday Night Wars ended with a score of 63 to Dynamite, 10 to NXT, and 2 ties.

With Dynamite unopposed on Wednesday, there was a massive ratings increase week on week, with the show going from 688,000 average viewers last week to 1,219,000 average viewers. This was the first time Dynamite had broken 1 million viewers since September 9th, 2020, when NXT was preempted, and the second-highest rating the show has had since the show premiered in 2019, which had 1,409,000 average viewers.

In comparison, NXT, which now calls Tuesday night’s home, had an average of 805,000 viewers, which was up almost 5% since the prior week. This ultimately shows both shows have benefited in the ratings by ending the war. However, AEW’s increase was vastly superior, showing that WWE’s decision to counterprogram NXT against Dynamite had split the audience.

Exactly one year ago, WWE went on a mass firing spree which saw them release talents including Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson, Kurt Angle, Rusev, Zack Ryder, Erick Rowan, and many more. History would then repeat itself earlier today with WWE announcing the releases of Samoa Joe, Billie Kay, Mickie James, Chelsea Green, Kalisto, Bo Dallas, Tucker, Wesley Blake, and Peyton Royce.

Fans had hoped the cuts were over, but now Mojo Rawley has been added to the list on WWE.com. It was thought WWE had big plans for the former football player when he won the André the Giant Memorial Trophy in 2017. However, he never received a sustained push, and he has not wrestled for WWE since being defeated by Shorty G on SmackDown back in June 2020.

It’s exactly one year to the day that WWE went on a mass firing spree. This saw Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson, Kurt Angle, Rusev, Curt Hawkins, EC3, Lio Rush, Eric Young, Aiden English, Heath Slater, Sarah Logan, Referee Mike Chioda, Erick Rowan, Primo, Epico, Zack Ryder, No Way Jose, Mike Kanellis, Maria Kanellis, Deonna Purrazzo, and others released.

Now history has repeated itself as the company is currently doing the same today. As of writing, the following names have been announced on WWE.com, with more expected to be confirmed. We will continue to follow this story and provide updates as we get them.

Samoa Joe

Billie Kay

Mickie James

Bo Dallas

Chelsea Green

Kalisto

Tucker

Wesley Blake

Peyton Royce – Added since initial post.

Mojo Rawley – Added since initial post.