Mark Henry ‘Perplexed’ WWE Releases Happened During SmackDown

Last night, news broke during WWE SmackDown that 13 NXT talents had been released from WWE, most notably former North American Champion Bronson Reed and former NXT Tag Team Champion Bobby Fish.

WWE Hall of Famer and current AEW talent Mark Henry spoke about the releases on Busted Open Radio earlier today, where he spoke about what message the number of releases sends to the talent within the company. Henry said:

“I just saw somebody say, ‘NXT has just been released by the WWE.’ I giggled a little bit. It wasn’t a laugh, it was a (giggles). That shouldn’t be a thing, man. I shouldn’t giggle at that, but the point about it is there have been so many releases that people are starting to look at, ‘Damn, man, the writings on the wall. I can be out of here at any time. Maybe I need to focus on job security. Maybe I need to go ahead and take a preemptive strike and not re-sign and go somewhere else.’ Japan, IMPACT, AEW, ROH, MLW. There are places to go work, and do you want to be a part of something that’s already well established or do you want to go somewhere and help make a company better? It depends on the talent, but it looks like, from an NXT standpoint, that nobody’s safe. That’s what it looks like to me after last night.

Henry continued on, explaining how he found the fact that these releases happened during the live broadcast of SmackDown ‘perplexing’. Henry added:

“Getting that news, and man, I’m just sitting here like still perplexed about the fact (that) it happened during the show. Like, hey guys, ‘I’m going to throw this grenade in the room and see what happens.’ What did they think was going to be the reaction from the fans?”

Henry currently works in talent development for AEW, and will be an announcer on the upcoming AEW Rampage show.

transcription via Fightful

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