The following comes courtesy of http://www.lordsofpain.net

WWE.com announced today the release of Gangrel, Billy Kidman, Shannon Moore, Akio, Maven, Spike Dudley, Mark Jindrak and Kevin Fertig (Mordecai) have been released. And of course, WWE wishes them all well in their future endeavors.

Gangrel was signed to a developmental deal back in the fall after making some appearances on Smackdown. He had some personal problems to attend to which halted his training at OVW. WWE must not have seen much in him and just finally pulled the plug.

Billy Kidman, Shannon Moore and Akio were mainstays on Velocity, but just could not get over with the fans it seemed. Billy Kidman's release should be devastating to Smackdown Diva Torrie Wilson.

Mark Jindrak was traded to the Raw brand just last week. While he was athletic, he couldn't seem to get over at all after two years.

And the Maven-Tough Enough project has come to an end after four years. Now both winners of the original Tough Enough have been axed, the other one being Nidia of course. Also, Chris Nowinski is more than likely retired and Josh Mathews is an announcer, so thus there are no actual wrestlers on today's WWE roster from that original series of Tough Enough.

Vince McMahon had a meeting with WWE wrestlers before last week's supershow and said that releases were coming soon. He noted that wrestlers who hadn't done what it took to get even a little over with the fans were the people mostly likely to get handed a pink slip. And most of the projected suspects to get released were in fact released today.

Its up to 16 released as of right now.

Jesus, they're swinging that axe pretty damn hard..

Not like I'll miss half of the people they've cut, but damn..

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I'm Gonna Pearl Harbor Your BALLS!!

17 as of right now.

As of 7/6/2005, 18 wrestlers/divas have been released from their WWE contracts within the past 24 hours, making this the biggest firing spree in WWE history. As if 18 wasn't enough, the party is not over. Dave Meltzer is reporting that 8 to 10 more people are set to get cut. You guys may want to make a "cut pool" for kicks.

Anyways, here is the complete list of the 18 wrestlers that have been released in the last two days to help you keep track of this huge mess of WWE Superstar departures.

Bubba Dudley
D-Von Dudley
Joy Giovanni
Kenzo Suzuki
Hiroko
Matt Morgan
Charlie Haas
Jackie Gayda
Marty Jannetty
Dawn Marie
Mark Jindrak
Maven
Shannon Moore
James Yun (Akio)
David Heath (Gangrel)
Billy Kidman
Spike Dudley
Kevin Fertig

And the possible 8-10 others:

Garrison Cade
Torrie Wilson (?)
Val Venis
Simon Dean
La Resistance
The Basham Brothers

Torrie Wilson being let go kind of makes sense since she is Kidman's real-life wife. (That lucky bastard!) The only names on the list that made me sit up and go WTF? were the Dudleys, not Spike, Charlie Haas, and Matt Morgan. Vince likes big guys so letting Morgan go but keeping stiffs like Viscera and Snitsky, not to mention Heidenreich, around makes no sense. Morgan is younger, better and presumably works cheaper anyway. Not his fault the creative geniuses couldn't find a gimmick for him.

With the success of the ECW PPV, the WWE might have eliminated the Dudleys deciding to just feature them spot by spot when doing ECW shows.

No paid contract, just pay-per-appearance like half the PPV performers were.

-K

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If only they could cut Jesus again.

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"____________" *points up*