Dave Meltzer Details Thought Process Behind Recent WWE Releases

WWE released eight wrestlers from its roster last week: Jinder Mahal, Veer, Sanga, Xia Li, Xyon Quinn, Von Wagner, and Cameron Grimes. All releases were reportedly cited as budget cuts with a consideration into their trajectory compared to tenure with the company. Writing on the cuts during this week's "Wrestling Observer Newsletter", Dave Meltzer indicated that they were main roster cuts made by WWE CCO Paul "Triple H" Levesque. Although Wagner enjoyed prominence on "WWE NXT", Meltzer added that he was considered a main roster talent after being drafted as a free agent. 

Meltzer also wrote that there had been a bigger story at play, that being that  Mahal, Veer, Sanga, and Li all represented nations that WWE had hoped to build a connection with: India and China. WWE makes more in its TV rights deals with India than it does in other countries where it's prominent, such as the UK and Canada, and Meltzer pointed to Mahal's WWE Championship reign as an attempt to build on that. However, with all WWE programming set to migrate to Netflix when its existing TV and streaming deals expire, there is much less of an emphasis on that front.

WWE isn't likely to attract interest from the financiers, either local or governmental, for live events in China or India and that has been reflected in the scarcity of live events run in either territory. For reference, the company has run more events since agreeing to a lucrative deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2018 than it has done in either China or India since 2000.