As the WWE Universe prepares to wake up early for a special edition of Crown Jewel coming to fans live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, three wrestlers won’t be on the roster at the time of the opening bell, as Indi Hartwell, Tegan Nox, and Baron Corbin have all been informed that the promotion is moving on from their serves.
Taking to social media to announce the moves, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful let it be known that the trio have all been informed of their release and that they would be the only three Superstars exiting the promotion at this time.
“The claim within WWE is that the three departures — Indi Hartwell, Tegan Nox, and Baron Corbin — are the only ones leaving in this round,” Sapp wrote on social media. “For Hartwell and Nox, we’re working to find out if their deals were coming up in 90 days or if they were releases.”
While the decision to move on from Nox isn’t particularly surprising, as she hasn’t been used on television in months and has never really had a prominent role on the main roster since making the jump from NXT a few years back. But Hartwell and Corbin? They were both competing for tag team championships earlier this year with Candice LeRae and Bron Breakker, respectively, with those storylines going over well with fans.
Considering both LeRae and Breakker are champions at the moment, having nothing for Hartwell or Corbin to do feels rather silly. But then again, WWE released Mustafa Ali less than a week before he had an NXT North American Championship on the books, so when saving a few bucks is the goal, the storyline implications really do come secondary.
WWE made a notable difference in Baron Corbin’s exit
While fans won’t be seeing Corbin, Nox, or Hartwell on their television screens any time soon, there is a noticeable difference between the former’s exit and his now-former coworkers, as his contract is set to expire, instead of being terminated mid-deal.
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“Baron Corbin was given notice by WWE that his contract will expire and will not be re-signed,” Sapp wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
On one hand, it’s nice that Corbin was allowed to finish out his deal instead of being released, as he is a very accomplished former WWE Champion who has done whatever the promotion has asked of him, including some weird gimmicks where he was Happy, a bum, and/or feeding Roman Reigns dog food while dressed as a Game of Thrones castoff. With that being said, their inability to find anything for him to do after spending time in NXT with Breakker is bad business that will certainly rub a few fans and wrestlers the wrong way.