WWE have released Braun Strowman, Aleister Black, Lana, Ruby Riott, Santana Garrett, and Buddy Murphy. The reason cited was part of budget cuts, and Strowman was being paid $1.2 million per year according to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. The former WWE Universal Champion signed a new contract in October 2019, so the budget cut regarding Strowman is the WWE’s biggest saving financially from all of the talent cuts in the last year plus during the pandemic. Braun Strowman was fired by WWE for a very surprising reason as well.
WWE continued to fire more members of staff over the past few months as well. This includes Canyon Ceman after he worked in the company for several years. He was the company’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development of WWE before being released.
On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer talked about Canyon Ceman’s release.
“He’s gone this time. The writing was on the wall a couple of weeks ago. There was a story that broke that he was out and that he was being replaced by Laurinaitis, in fact, that was going on. I don’t know, the decision was made and many many people knew it.
“He was gone, and they made — what was told to me like when he was gone and then not gone was that he’s gone, but he’s not gone yet, but he’s going to be gone. They wanted to do it in a way where — it’s funny because so many people get fired there and they just get fired. With Canyon, they were letting him go and they wanted to do it in a certain way, like he would know, like they gave him a couple of weeks. He knew he was going to be gone.”
