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Darren Young, Emma, and Summer Ray were released by WWE, as announced on WWE.com and WWE’s Twitter feed today.
BREAKING NEWS: WWE has come to terms on the releases of WWE Superstars Darren Young and Summer Rae. https://t.co/CU8R144QG2
— WWE (@WWE) October 29, 2017
Summer Rae is a former Lingeire Football League player who transitioned to WWE’s developmental system in 2011. She played the role of Fandango’s dance partner on the main roster and was involved in a storyline with Rusev and Lana, and later accompanies Tyler Breeze to the ring. She was part of a Kickoff Show match at WrestleMania 32, but sat out most of the last year due to injuries and, likely, “creative having nothing for her.”
Emma just wrestled two high-profile matches against Asuka, one at last Sunday’s WWE TLC PPV and another on Raw the next night. She lost both matches, but they were relatively competitive and lengthy. Had there been plans to release Emma, it seems likely Asuka would have won in more dominant fashion. Emma posted an icon of a broken heart around noon today, presumably related to this news. She ironically also posted last Monday on Twitter: “I’m not done yet… Not even close!” in reference to a rematch that night against Asuka. She touted on her Twitter profile that she was the first Australian woman to become a WWE Superstar.
https://twitter.com/EmmaWWE/status/924695421569716225
I'm not done yet… Not even close! You'll see tonight! #ItsAllAboutEmma #WWE #RAW pic.twitter.com/kF12O4pttX
— EMMA (@EmmaWWE) October 23, 2017
Darren Young was best known for his time as one-half of The Prime Time Players with Titus O’Neal. He also more recently was managed by Bob Backlund in a storyline that never really went anywhere. He will likely be most remembered as the first openly gay wrestler in WWE during his active years (Pat Patterson is openly gay, but didn’t acknowledge it publicly when he was an active wrestler.) Young was at the Los Angeles Clippers game last night promoting WWE’s event there on Dec. 4.
https://twitter.com/DarrenYoungWWE/status/924513383725936640
Keller’s Analysis: The Young and Emma releases are intriguing based on timing alone. The decision to release Emma has to be recent, right? Why else would they have Emma define down Asuka’s greatness upon arrival by having Emma hold her own in relatively lengthy back-and-forth matches? The Asuka-Emma series seemed designed to give a boost to Emma more than establish Asuka as something really special just arriving on the main roster with a chance to dominate the division’s bottom two-thirds. As for Young, the timing is interesting in that he was at a Los Angeles Clipper NBA game in Los Angeles, Calif. the night before representing WWE and Tweeting about it, and the release comes just two days after VICE published an article critical of WWE celebrating the legacy of the Ultimate Warrior because he had said some vile, bigoted, and hateful things during speeches and in blogs about ten years or so ago. By releasing Young, WWE released their only openly gay wrestler just two days after defending to VICE their decision to celebrate Warrior as some kind of inspirational hero in recent years despite his caustic and hate-filled comments in the 2000s about gay people, women, hurricane victims, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Heenan (right after he was diagnosed with cancer). Check out my editorial on the Warrior-VICE article HERE.
So they push her to the roof lately and even make her the sacrificial lamb to Asuka but byebye Emma. More talent and looks than Snuka, Nia, Dana, and some others but that doesn’t matter as Vince is going to blow up the women’s division. As I predicted in several recent comments, Snuka, Baley, Nia, Dana, Foxy and possibly even Natty [with a move as co-trainer at NXT] are all dead women walking as Vince brings up the next herd from NXT. C’mon down ladies, lie down for Asuka and get fired!
Nia will not be fired. Vince would not risk pi$$ing the Rock off. Wouldn’t be surprised if Emmas release is a condition of Nias return.
My guess, Emma was just caught in the numbers crunch. They brought Asuka up, so Vince wanted to clip some salary. I mean he has to be able continue to pay Brock millions of dollars a year to stand silently in the ring, turn red, and never defend the belt. Where on Earth would you ever find someone else able to do THAT?
I doubt Darren Young’s release had anything to do with him being gay. That is a really a stretch.
I cannot believe Emma was released. She must have done something bad this weekend. I did not care about Summer Rae or Young at all but I am bummed that Emma is gone.
I’m disappointed WWE released Emma. In a way though, I think she could do quite a bit better for herself somewhere else. If Impact’s smart, they’re making calls and laying out storylines for her now.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Summer Rae turn up somewhere else, either. She never really did any storylines that bored me.
Hey Wade, Martin Luther was a ‘homophobe’ too? What are your thoughts on this? Should we denounce him?