Friday, January 9 – 5:57 P.M. (CT)

WWE announced the releases of three performers on Friday. There were rumblings that the cuts would take place, as the company also announced that they were cutting 10 percent of their office staff in their ongoing attempt to shed $20 million from the budget.

Although there were no shockers amongst the released talent, the most surprising one of the bunch was Val Venis (a/k/a Sean Morley), who was with the company for over a decade. He wasn't a regular on television in recent years, but it was surprising to see his name listed if for no other reason than he had survived so many past talent purges.

It always surprised me that WWE didn't do more with Val. He was a good performer in the ring, they never tried anything beyond the Big Valbowski and the brief run as a member of Right to Censor.

I'm disappointed that WWE didn't give D-Lo Brown a real chance to get over. He received a great pop at the WWE Raw show I attended at Target Center back in September even though he hadn't been a regular on television. Brown gave up an agent role in TNA to return to WWE, so it's a shame that WWE didn't make an honest effort to do something with him.

It's hard to imagine that his agent job will be waiting for him in TNA. After all, the company has cut agents Pat Kenney and Glenn Gilbertti since he departed for WWE. TNA officials passed on the chance to put Brown back in the ring, so I would be surprised if they were interested in bringing him back as a talent now.

The release of Bam Neeley was not a shocker. He was given a run as Chavo Guerrero's bodyguard on ECW, but the gimmick never took off. Worse yet, he was blamed behind the scenes for Evan Bourne's ankle injury. As I mentioned on the Dot Net Members' site recently, Neely was accused of failing to catch Bourne properly when he performed a dive over the top rope, which resulted in Bourne suffering the ankle injury that required surgery.

Neely's name came up on the Dec. 29 Raw when Goldust stated during a Christmas themed promo that Jeff Hardy has more charisma in his pinky than Neely had in his entire body. Ouch. The comment seems even colder in retrospect, particularly if the creative team knew he was going to be released.

WWE has unloaded the majority of the performers who were listed on the various brand rosters, yet have not been featured on television lately. However, there are still a few names who fit that description, so the talent trimming may not be finished.

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