Why Summer Rae Was Released From Her WWE Contract

Several names have been released from WWE over the past week. Main roster stars Emma, Darren Young and Summer Rae were recently released, and former Tough Enough winner Josh Bredl was also released from his contract.

Emma’s release was reportedly due to problems with WWE creative, but it looks like she’s going to be hitting the independent circuit early next year.

Summer Rae recently took to social media to say that she’s not giving up on herself, but fans have still been wondering what led to her WWE release.

Dave Meltzer recently talked about Summer’s release on Wrestling Observer Radio, and he noted that WWE had a certain role in mind for her, but they don’t believe it’s something she can make work at this stage of her career.

The plan for Summer Rae when she joined the company in 2011 was to try and make her a major attraction, not necessarily as a wrestler, but as a performer more along the lines of someone like Stacy Keibler or Torrie Wilson.

WWE officials don’t see her as a good fit for that role anymore, and they reportedly didn’t want to use her as a wrestler.

The love rectangle storyline with Dolph Ziggler, Rusev and Lana in 2015 also apparently had a negative impact on her career. Not due to anything she did wrong, but because the storyline just didn’t work out, and after that she became the manager for Tyler Breeze. After her run with Tyler Breeze went nowhere, WWE officials couldn’t come up with anything for her, and her injury last year prevented her from being used.