More on Bray Wyatt’s WWE Release

WWE’s surprising release of Bray Wyatt earlier today was due to what WWE reportedly claimed was “budgetary reasons.”

According to PWInsider, WWE’s head of talent relations John Laurinaitis called Wyatt today and told him that he was released simply because of budget cuts and not because of something that Wyatt had done.

So the release was a WWE decision and not Wyatt asking to be released.

WWE has used the “budget cut” excuse for most of their releases over the past year or so. One source told PWInsider that WWE President Nick Khan and CFO Kristina Salen were “obsessed” with cutting the budget to make WWE’s financial reports look better.

Other sources told PWInsider that Wyatt and Vince McMahon’s relationship behind the scenes “ran very hot and cold at times,” so if the idea to cut a big contract was brought up by Khan, that could be one reason why McMahon agreed or didn’t push back.

According to Fightful Select, some on the WWE creative team had been told that Wyatt “was getting protective of his character after what were seen as poor creative decisions and ideas thrown his way,” but many on the creative team didn’t speak to Wyatt directly and weren’t sure if that was hearsay.

Fightful also reported that Wyatt’s name was actually brought up in a previous recent round of WWE releases. They added that there have been multiple wrestlers who have been previously discussed for possible cuts, but were held on to.