Mere weeks after Rene Dupre was released from WWE, his former tag team partner, Sylvain Grenier, was announced as the latest firing from the Fed on Monday.
In a statement on wwe.com, the company noted that it, “has come to terms on the release of Sylvain Grenier as of today. We wish Sylvain the best in all future endeavors.”
Grenier, known most recently in WWE simply as “Sylvan”, last appeared on WWE TV this past Friday in a losing effort to Kane on Smackdown.
Though Grenier was formally introduced to fans as part of La Resistance with Dupre, he was, in fact, a member of the WWE roster prior to his ring debut as a referee, most notably during matches between Hulk Hogan and The Rock. The role, however, was short-lived.
Grenier, originally from Montreal, came into an active wrestling role, along with Dupre, as the aforementioned La Resistance, a French tag team, initially attacking Scott Steiner. The two would quickly become tag team champions before Rob Conway, also a recent WWE release, was added to the group. During this run, Grenier would sustain an injury and be on the shelf for some time.
Following his return, Grenier reunited with La Resistance before Dupre was drafted to Smackdown. Now a duo who wore the fleur de lis with pride and were announced as being from Quebec, Grenier and Conway had three other World Tag Team Title reigns before the duo split. They would feud for a short time before being placed in separate brands.
On his own, Grenier developed a persona similar to Rick “The Model” Martel’s in the early 1990s during his run on Smackdown. The gimmick was not on TV long before Grenier would begin to appear in vignettes as a French-Canadian ambassador. He would make several appearances on Smackdown before moving to ECW in February 2007 for a very short run with Dupre, reunited under the La Resistance banner.
Most recently, Grenier had been touring on the Smackdown/ECW house show circuit, occasionally accompanied by Maryse, one of the contestants from the 2006 Diva Search.
— with files from Jon Waldman