JBL has pushed back on the official-line explanation that WWE’s post-WrestleMania 42 cuts wave was driven by SmackDown going from three hours to two, saying on the latest episode of Something to Wrestle that the more honest framing is that WWE simply cut people it doesn’t think it needs right now.
The discussion came up after Thompson cited a Dave Meltzer report from last week pointing to the SmackDown runtime reduction as one of the internal reasons given for the wave. Thompson asked JBL whether that reasoning held water from a business perspective.
“I think it can, yeah. Like, I’m not such a big one on bashing WWE over this, you know, I played the NFL, played pro football because I played the World League, mainly in Brazil. NFL just a cup of coffee, not enough to even mention, but World League, and I got cut after my third year, you know, and we didn’t have the internet back then, but I certainly wouldn’t have gone on the internet and cried about it for the next two years that, hey, look how much the NFL is making. They’re cutting me. How can they do that? That’s life, and that’s life with WWE. I mean, it’s just life in business.”
JBL drew the comparison to corporate America to widen the lens.
“I mean, look at companies like Apple or Facebook and they cut people, you know, they’re making so much money, yeah, but that’s business, you know, that’s one of the reasons they’re making so much money. I mean, they don’t adopt you.”
“So look, is it legit that they say it’s going from three hours to two? I think it probably is, but I think it’s more legit that they’re just cutting people that they think they don’t need, or at least need right now.”
JBL extended that framing into the broader observation that fans were attaching too much blame to individual decision-makers when the cuts came down.
“Well, that’s fun. That’s fun to do that. It’s fun to armchair quarterback. That’s why people love to do it. They get on Reddit and their chat groups. They love to go on podcasts and talk about it. That’s what people do. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
JBL did not address the cuts directly by name on the show, but the post-WrestleMania 42 wave from WWE has been documented to include Alba Fyre, the Wyatt Sicks group, Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Joe Gacy (now wrestling indies as Joe Sawyer), and others across the WWE main roster and NXT, with the cuts trickling through April and into May 2026. Reports from outlets including Fightful and the Wrestling Observer have separately cited the SmackDown reduction as one of several factors named to talent agents in the wake of the moves. In the case of Woods and Kingston, they were asked to take a pay cut, refused and asked for their release.
JBL noted earlier in the same episode that WWE’s pay scale relative to the era he was on the roster makes the cuts feel different than the same news would have a decade earlier.
“I love pro wrestling as much as anybody, but the times change, and these guys make so much more money. And you’re talking about guys getting a pay cut from 4 million to 2 million. You’re getting $2 million for five years, buddy, I was in the roster when nobody on the roster made that. So look, times are pretty good with these guys, you know. And I understand you can argue with the creative all you want, but that’s, that’s what fans should do.”
He framed the modern roster pay levels as a separate conversation from the cuts themselves.
“I think what they’re doing is fantastic. As far as the money that they’re bringing in and the exposure, look at ESPN. I mean, I don’t think anybody would have thought that ESPN would have wrestlers on every single day with long interviews in prime time. The exposure that these guys are getting is just massive right now.”
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.