*deep breath*

(Much wrestling ranting coming, the uninterested should steer clear.)

In the past 12 hours, WWE has released…

-The Gymini, a tag team on Smackdown

-Gangrel, who to the best of my knowledge never made an appearance on TV in this new contract

-Tony Mamaluke, ECW Original, last seen getting squashed by Sylvester Turkay on the ECW PPV

-The Basham Brothers, last seen as “Paul Heyman’s security” on ECW

-Al Snow, though he’ll remain with the company as a trainer in OVW

-CW Anderson, ECW Original, who is currently rehabbing an injury after barely appearing for the company

-Jazz, ECW Original, who appeared on the “ECW vs. WWE” special and dropped off the face of the Earth

-Rodney Mack, her husband, marking the SECOND time in the history of the company that this husband and wife combo have been released together

-Sylvester Turkay, making his squashing of Mamaluke on the PPV that much more significant

Add ‘em up, that’s ELEVEN released in a space of 12 hours. Almost none (with the exception of Turkay) getting anything resembling a push, almost none (except Turkay again) given a decent shot at getting over, and the vast majority of whom got next-to- or no TV time at all.

To those who still like to fancy Vince McMahon a “genius,” I would merely like to ask why he spent the time and effort to sign these 11 names with no apparent intention on doing anything with them, only to release them a few months later.

But, as counter-balance, WWE has announced the signing of ROH mainstay Ace Steel and former TNA talent Cassidy Riley (last seen as Raven’s flunky). And for those who’d like to think WWE will do well by THESE guys, may I simply point out the roles we’ve already seen them in on WWE TV: Steel doing his STELLAR Donald Trump imitation a couple weeks ago on Raw, Cassidy Riley getting squashed by “The Alpha Male” Monty Brown (under his new name, “The Alpha Male” Marquis Cor Von) on ECW.

By the way…MARQUIS COR VON?!?!?! REALLY? THAT’S the new name we slap on Monty for his WWE-ization? I mean, what the f*ck?!?! The guy had built up a pretty decent name for himself in TNA, has a thoroughly workable gimmick and character, has a legitimate sports background, played in multiple Super Bowls, and played in them under his real name, Monty Brown. So what do we do? We KEEP the gimmick name, but jettison his actual name for a MUCH less marketable and awkward one. Thus, Vince McMahon can continue to pat himself on the back and pretend that he invented everything in wrestling history and nothing that anyone else came up with can ever be as good as what he could make himself. You can almost here Gerald Brisco and JBL’s voices right now: “Yeah, Marquis Cor Von, that’s a brilliant idea Mr. McMahon! To heck with using his NFL footage to get him over! You’ll show ‘em, Mr. McMahon! You sure kicked Ted Turner’s *ss, Mr. McMahon!”

Of course, it might be a little hard to hear Jerry and John, given their ongoing policy of stationing themselves no more or less than three inches away from Vince’s backside.

Okay, enough ranting for one day. We now return you to our regularly…oh, wait, one more thing. In TNA, they announced Monty as being from “The Serengeti.” Silly, to be sure, but it played into his jungle gimmick. On ECW, “Marquis” was announced as being from “The Animal Kingdom.” Yep. Apparently now, Monty is not only French, but he hails from a Disney nature documentary. Worst hometown since Damien Demento hailed from “The Outer Reaches of Your Mind.”