After spending a tremendous amount of time and effort throughout 2018 and 2019 to sign as many wrestlers as possible to long-term contracts, WWE has seemingly done a 180 on this policy in 2021. Fans saw a hint of it in 2020, with April seeing a massive swathe of WWE wrestler releases, but it turns out that was just a taste of what was to come.

2021 has seen a whopping 71 wrestlers released from their contracts with WWE. These wrestlers' reputations range from the main event to developmental, and it has left many fans outraged as to how WWE has, to their minds, wasted so much talent. While the TV product suffers from these losses, there may be something even worse yet to come for the upcoming video game WWE 2K22 for a laundry list of reasons.

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The Smallest WWE 2K Roster In Years

wwe 2k22 the miz

One piece of promotional material has been a consistent boon to new WWE games over the past generation. Every new game had "the largest roster in WWE game history," which was true and increasingly impressive. Chances are, fans of American wrestling would find at least a couple of their favourites among the game's ranks.

However, with 71 names now removed from the pool of superstars, the number of playable wrestlers will be severely decreased, something WWE fans have already noticed. It's not the end of the world, but a crucial marketing bullet in the chamber is now gone from when the promotional cycle of the game begins in earnest, leading them to likely focus on things like the rumoured return of WWE's General Manager mode instead.

What's arguably more important than the plain number of wrestlers that are gone is specifically who is gone. If these wrestler releases were just 71 nobodies, then it wouldn't be a big deal, but among the released are a massive number of fan-favourite wrestlers. Many players may now not bother with the game since they can't play as who they like. Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan, Adam Cole, Aleister Black, Braun Strowman and Keith Lee, to list just a few, will be unavailable to players. To make this issue worse, those wrestlers are now all somewhere else.

WWE Losing Out To The AEW Competition

AEW Console Game Yuke's Jungle Boy Darby Allin

It's impossible to talk about WWE's releases without bringing up AEW and their habit of signing the best released talent to their roster. For the most part, WWE seems to have accepted that released wrestlers will end up in AEW, and don't seem to mind. However, now they've stacked up so significantly, it could move the needle in the video game department.

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AEW has been working on a console game for quite a while now, and the few snapshots fans have seen look promising. While no release window has been announced for the game, it will likely release towards the end of 2022/start of 2023. If that game is on-par with the WWE games gameplay-wise, then fans will pick which one to buy based on which wrestlers they can play as. Ultimately, when AEW has stars like Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, and Adam Cole on offer, WWE's biggest stars like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins just aren't going to cut it for much of the hardcore fanbase.

WWE May Be Wasting 2K's Development Time

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WWE 2K22 is a crucial game for the series. After the disaster of WWE 2K20's launch, Visual Concept and 2K have spent two and a half years working to make sure the next game is a hit with fans. This means that every hour is crucial for development time, and WWE is only wasting it with these talent releases.

A vast majority of the WWE roster was scanned for 2K22, and new models were made for their in-game characters. Released wrestler Oney Lorcan revealed on a live stream that he had been scanned for the game, but has no idea whether he will still be included on the roster. Released stars have appeared in a game after leaving WWE previously if they left too close to the game's launch. For example, Alberto Del Rio featured on WWE 2K17's roster despite leaving the company two months prior.

This leaves WWE with a difficult decision regarding all of these released wrestlers. If 2K keeps them in the game, WWE risks potentially exposing their absence and stirring up fan outrage a second time. On the other hand, if WWE demands that they be removed from the game's roster, then a significant amount of 2K's time and money has been wasted on work that will never see the light of day. It's not uncommon for chunks of games to be scrapped unexpectedly before release, but for WWE to willfully cause the reduction of the roster puts a strain on the reportedly already rocky relationship between WWE and 2K.

At the end of the day, WWE will continue to operate without worrying about any of this. WWE's Chief Revenue Officer, Nick Khan, has been very public about "re-evaluating their staff" as of late, and it's likely the end of Q4 will see another wave of releases before WWE 2K22 hits shelves. This means that the problem isn't going to go away any time soon, and the onus will be on 2K to work out what to do about it, and avoid another disastrous game launch.

WWE 2K22 releases in March 2022.

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