Older WWE NXT Talent Were Reportedly Close To Getting Cut

This past week saw 18 talent get released by WWE along with other shake-ups in other WWE departments. Several NXT talents and main roster talents were cut including Karrion Kross, Nia Jax, Franky Monet and Ember Moon.

Talent were told through email that the reason for their cut was for "budget reasons," but it has been reported that some talents were cut due to the COVID-19 vaccine or because of their age.

On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that around 10 other names were in strong discussion of being cut. These were talents that were not being used well, and they were seen as on the bubble of possible getting cut.

These names are veteran NXT talent in their 30s that have not been seen on TV often as of late. The names include talents like Danny Burch and Timothy Thatcher.

NXT is currently going through a transition phase of pushing younger talent with Bron Breakker being the face of the transition. Talent like Tommaso Ciampa are an exception, however, since a talent like Ciampa is a legacy NXT star and is being used to help transition the NXT 2.0 brand to a new direction.

Johnny Gargano's contract is set to expire soon. Gargano and Kyle O'Reilly recently worked a dark match at SmackDown.