Post-Mania Purge Begins: WWE Releases Ex-Champions, Rising Stars

John Powell

Post-Mania Purge Begins: WWE Releases Ex-Champions, Rising Stars

The annual post-WrestleMania WWE roster culling has begun.

The following have been cut from WWE:

Nikki Cross

Joe Gacy

Zoey Stark

Alba Fyre

Uncle Howdy

Dante Chen

Santos Escobar

Kairi Sane

The Motor City Machine Guns

Tayra Mae Steel

Aleister Black and his wife Zelina Vega

Luca Crusifino

Apollo Crews

Andre Chase

Malik Blade

Tyson Dupont

Tyriek Igwe

Rowan

Kairi Sane is a big surprise as she just appeared on Raw last week teaming with Asuka against Iyo Sky and Rhea Ripley. She was in the middle of a storyline, a tug of war between her sensei Asuka and her former ally Iyo Sky. During her second tour of WWE, she was never pushed as a singles star. She was part of Damage Control and The Kubuki Warriors with Asuka.

Veteran tag team the Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) joined the WWE with a lot of fanfare in 2024, almost immediately winning the WWE Tag Team Championship and then kind of got lost in the shuffle and were just shown nattering around in backstage segments.

Santos Escobar was recently let go by the company, showed up in AAA and then disappeared again.

Tayra Mae Steel who dominated Evolve and was being pushed for a big run in NXT after becoming the women’s winner for the first season of WWE LFG.

Aleister Black, who just returned to the WWE after a stint in AEW, didn’t have many big angles or storylines except run-ins with Sami Zayn and Randy Orton but never ever elevated to a major feud.

Zelina Vega had her moment in the sun winning the WWE Women’s United States Championship from Chelsea Green in 2024. Since then, she has been teamed up with her real-life husband, Aleister Black. She also was the first ever Queen of the Ring.

NXT’s Luca Crusifino was a big part of the Tony D’Angelo family before The Family was dissolved and Tony altered his persona.

Apollo Crews won the Intercontinental Championship and the United States Championship when he was moved up from NXT to the main roster but after that wasn’t part of any major angle.

Nikki Cross was part of the Sanity stable led by Eric Young in NXT. She then moved up to the main roster as a solo act before teaming up with Alexa Bliss. She then adopted a superhero gimmick then joined The Wyatt Sicks as a character inspired by Asian horror characters like The Ring’s Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki from The Grudge.

She won the WWE Raw Women’s Championship once and the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship twice with Alexa Bliss and once with Rhea Ripley. She also won the Women’s Money in the Bank in 2021.

She wrote on X:

Goodbye and Thank you WWE

I’m really excited for whatever my next chapter will hold.

Thank you all for the continued love and support.

Special thank you to Robbie Brookside and William Regal for helping this dream come true.

Thank you to the wrestlers, coaches, producers…”

In NXT, Joe Gacy was the cult leader of the Dyad and later became a member also of The Wyatt Sicks. He won the WWE Tag Team Championship once with his stablemate Dexter Lumis.

Zoey Stark did well in NXT before moving to the main roster where she teamed with Sonya Deville and Shayna Baszler as the Pure Fusion Collective (P.F.C.). She torn her ACL, MCL, and meniscus in 2021 and has been out of action ever since.

Alba Fyre joined the WWE as part of the Mae Young Classic. She would later go on to become the NXT UK Women’s Champion defeating Toni Storm at TakeOver Cardiff. In NXT, she formed The Unholy Union tag team with Isla Dawn and later joined The Green Regime with Piper Niven as part of The Secret Hervice, Chelsea Green’s bodyguards.

Uncle Howdy, AKA: Bo Dallas, Taylor Michael Rotunda is the brother of Bray Wyatt, (Windham Lawrence Rotunda). He took over the Wyatt Family (Sicks) in memory of his brother but he and group never rose to prominence. Before that, he ran with his “Bolieve!” gimmick, The Social Outcasts, The Miztourage and The B-Team. Dallas won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship once with Curtis Axel and was the NXT Champion once defeating Big E Langston for the title.

Andre Chase was the leader of Chase Academy a massively popular faction in NXT for a number of years. Chase would lose an Ambulance Match to Ridge Holland and had to disband Chase U as per the matches stipulation. Chase would link up with Chase U fans Uriah Connors and Kale Dixon but the team never amounted to much in NXT.

Chase posted a video confirming that he has been release from his WWE contract.

“I just want to say thank you. Thank you for all of the support. Thanks to everyone who would throw up the ‘U’s at the shows, whether you bought my t-shirt or action figure, played with me on WWE 2K, just know that you helped make something out of nothing,” he said.

Chase revealed that when he signed with WWE he was told he was never going to be a superstar or be on television. He was just going to coach the younger talent.

“I was never meant to be a superstar but something changed and it was because of your support. It was because of the connection we had,” he said.

Dexter Lumis posted an ambiguous image on X but he has been released as well.

NXT’s Dante Chen, who has been working the Evolve brand, never really broken through on the Black and Gold brand.

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