Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: NXT, NXT Releases, wrestling, wwe, WWE Releases

NXT Cuts: WWE Listens To Me And Fires Crazy Ref Drake Wuertz

It was about a month ago when WWE announced their near-annual post-Wrestlemania list of performers that they were releasing from the company.  This move is always chalked up to budget cuts and now today, it appears to be NXT's turn.  According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, the list of people released from NXT today includes referee Jake Clemons and wrestlers Skyler Story, Ezra Judge, Alexander Wolfe, Jessamyn Duke, Vanessa Bourne, and Kavita Devi.  More names are expected to join them today, but the one release today that actually has the wrestling world celebrating is that of highly controversial NXT referee Drake Wuertz.

For those unfamiliar with Wuertz, he has become an increasingly troublesome figure for WWE over the past year, as he has fully bought into the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and has been found to be supportive online of white supremacy groups such as the Proud Boys.

While he can believe whatever he wants, he courted controversy by bringing his extreme and hateful beliefs into the workplace.  In February, he was part of a group photo with other NXT referees where he can be seen holding up an "ok" hand gesture, which is known as a white supremacy hand symbol.

After reportedly being quietly suspended and banned from the WWE Performance Center earlier this year, Wuertz continued his extreme behavior recently by skipping NXT tv tapings as recently as last week to appear at Florida school board meetings and going on heated rants against COVID-19 precautions, which he is against and believes is an afront to god.

Wuertz did ref a match on last night's episode of NXT, wherein my recap I stated how I couldn't believe he was still employed by WWE.  I guess WWE couldn't either and finally remedied the situation today.

More surprising than Wuertz's release was the release of Alexander Wolfe, who has been a big part of NXT's Imperium faction and even had a big spot on last night's episode, where the faction turned on Wolfe and assaulted him after his match against Killian Dain.  Last night, the brand tweeted post-assault and said "Auf Wiedersehen", which is German for "goodbye".  Was this some foreshadowing by WWE's social media department?

Again, more names are expected from WWE's NXT purge today and when we get them, we will report them to you.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!