TKO Has Turned Into the Ultimate Heel With WWE Fans

WWE wasted no time boasting about breaking records with WrestleMania 42, announcing it as "one of the highest-grossing events in company history" in an April 22 press release.

This year's 'Mania was moved from New Orleans to Las Vegas for the second straight year because of the vast amount of money WrestleMania 41 generated in Sin City.

An impressive attendance of 106,072 between the two nights and over 1.3 billion views across all social platforms ensured it was a successful weekend for WWE and TKO.

Four days later, over 20 main roster and developmental talents were released from their contracts, per Fightful and PWInsider.

It's become an unfortunate yet expected annual tradition for WWE to let go of those it has nothing for creatively in the wake of WrestleMania. It was routine while Vince McMahon was at the helm and has carried over into the TKO regime as well.

With the WWE roster being deeper than it's been in decades and fresh faces constantly being brought up to Raw and SmackDown from NXT, departures are inevitable. It's typically names who haven't been spotted on the shows in some time or have little more they can contribute creatively.

Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images

While that could be considered the case for a few of the wrestlers released this past Friday, there were also a handful of notable names who were genuinely shocking to see get cut, specifically Kairi Sane and Aleister Black.

Even the once-white-hot Wyatt Sicks and the accomplished Motor City Machine Guns were involved in key matches and storylines over the last year on SmackDown and helped elevate the tag team division to new heights.

While WWE's justification for certain releases will never be revealed, the only explanation is that the company cares about their bottom line now more than ever before.

The writing was on the wall, but these roster cuts confirmed what many already feared: TKO has turned into the ultimate heel with WWE fans.

The Top Takeaway from WWE's Latest Round of Releases

Job security has never existed in WWE. Outside of the top-tier talent, no one's spot is safe.

An argument can be made for that giving the roster added motivation, but it also creates a sense of uneasiness and anxiety during what should be WWE's most exciting stretch of the year.

Should anyone who doesn't make the 'Mania card automatically be worried that their job could be in jeopardy?

The Wyatt Sicks competed as recently as the pre-WrestleMania SmackDown, albeit in a losing effort to longtime rivals The MFTs. Prior to that point, they had been a weekly fixture on the blue brand and even held the WWE Tag Team Championship for a six-month period.

They had an entire attraction devoted to them at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights last October. Although their crowd reactions were gradually getting more tepid, there was zero indication they were on the chopping block.

The same can be said for Kairi Sane, who found herself at the crux of one of Raw's better stories this year with Asuka and Iyo Sky.

The obvious endgame was Sky convincing The Pirate Princess to stand up to Asuka and getting her back by her side, but WWE released Sane before they could appropriately pay off that angle.

Even Aleister Black was set to play a pivotal role in Randy Orton's Road to WrestleMania by facing and beating him at the event and being the catalyst for his heel turn, according to PWInsider.

Black was instead switched out for McAfee reportedly at TKO's direction, left off the card completely and was subsequently released along with his wife, Zelina Vega.

Although Vega mentioned while streaming on Twitch shortly following being informed of her firing that the phone call came from TKO, WWE chief content officer Triple H isn't blameless in the situation.

Even if it was TKO's decision to do roster cuts, The Game was almost assuredly the one to determine who was being let go.

Meg Oliphant/WWE via Getty Images

There's no such thing as being a "Triple H Guy" or "Triple H Girl" anymore. Statistically speaking, almost everyone on the current roster came through the NXT system, and although officials are bound to have their favorites, it's not necessarily because they were present at the peak of the black-and-gold brand's most prosperous period between 2015 and 2018.

The optics of releasing a slew of Superstars days after making record-setting profits are awful, to say the least.

The bigger issue is releasing Superstars who are in the middle of stories. WWE prides itself on telling stories, but fans won't want to invest in these characters if there's a concern they're not going to be there the next week.

If WWE isn't a pro wrestling company, either (the overall WrestleMania match times were egregious compared to how much time was taken up by ads and commercials), then it has no discernible identity under TKO in 2026.

"Soulless" was a buzzword fans were using to describe WWE coming out of WrestleMania, and that isn't entirely inaccurate given the nature of these releases.

It was painfully apparent when R-Truth's contract wasn't renewed initially last year, but loyalty has no value in the modern-day WWE. The company enjoyed a big boom in business between 2023 and 2024, and while it's hardly hurting for cash these days, its public perception has taken a critical hit and only continues to tank.

WWE and TKO's Goodwill Is Gone

There's a reason why TKO was portrayed as the "villain" in CM Punk and Cody Rhodes' storylines ahead of WrestleMania. It's because its influence on the product has been undeniable as of late.

Contrary to popular belief, TKO doesn't have "complete creative control" over the company, or at least not in the way fans think it does. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter clarified that it has the final say over all storylines but rarely uses it.

If anything, TKO interjects at the most inopportune times, as seen on SmackDown with McAfee inexplicably being incorporated into the Undisputed WWE Championship picture for WrestleMania.

Celebrities have been commonplace in WWE for decades, so that's nothing new, but how they're utilized is what makes all the difference. They should not be coming in at the expense of a story that's tied to one of the WrestleMania main events.

That's in addition to ticket prices in WWE being higher than they've ever been, and if they aren't lowered in the coming months, Punk's "pipe bomb" promo calling the company out for it will have made the TKO overlords look even worse.

The WWE product was so abysmal in McMahon's final years as head honcho that countless fans were chased off. Triple H taking the reins was refreshing, especially with how quickly he started making changes the fans were clamoring to see and re-signing wrestlers who had been unceremoniously released.

Karrion Kross, Dakota Kai, The Good Brothers, Braun Strowman and eventually Black were all granted redemption runs. However, a majority of the stars Triple H brought back to WWE have since been released once more, including every single one of the aforementioned athletes.

It's worth noting that TKO was in the picture when WWE was still firing on all cylinders creatively between 2023 and 2024. It was just that its presence on the product didn't loom as large.

Unfortunately for Triple H, once WWE's business begins to dip, he'll simply serve as the scapegoat and be replaced by The Rock or whoever it sees fit. The recurring cycle will continue until TKO comes to the realization that changes are needed at the very top.

WWE must return to its roots as a fan-friendly, storyline-driven promotion and avoid falling more and more into the "corporate" category. It's widespread throughout sports and entertainment, but it's become increasingly more evident with WWE.

For every step it takes forward with a well-received WrestleMania, it takes two backward when it cuts ties with talent fans aren't ready to see leave. TKO is stealing the focus from what matters most, and it's going to cost the company in the long run until it learns to stay on the sidelines and let WWE excel on its own.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.