Cost-cutting in WCW just reached another 'Duh!' low: according to Rick Scaia on Wrestleline's Online Onslaught Tygress, Major Gunns, Daffney, Leia Meow, and Paisley were all released today.

Granted, I've never been a fan of Daffney, but if they are all gone (it may be, as Rick says, part of a close-their-contracts-then-hire-them-back-for-less ploy) then WCW has just removed all the eye candy quotient from their product, and destroyed a lot of valet relationships.

I guess in the twisted logic of WCW, where the overpaid lazy folks at the top stay untouched while the hard-working guys who are paid less get cut, this is an idea that makes sense. In the world of fandom, it's just plain dumb.

Monday's edition of WWF RAW highlighted what the problematic impression of a stale product comes from: not the fact that the wrestlers haven't changed, but that the storylines chosen haven't.

Look at the 3-way tag-team match: the Hardy Boyz will face the Dudleys for the straps at Smackdown.

Now, both teams have put on some excellent matches in the past - but we've now seen the Hardys / Dudleys / Edge and Christian as the only people to wrestle each other regularly. There are no permutations of these teamings not done already; we've seen them all..

Last year around this time, pundits raved about the WWF having their best tag division in years. Now, because of overusing the same match-ups ad nauseum, it no longer does.

I just read this news in two different sheets (Wrestling-Online & Prowrestling Digest), so I'm going to go out on a limb and take it as reality: Dennis Knight aka Mideon is the latest wrestler the WWF have given a release.

Many of the things said are that the boys liked him, and that his personality and upbeat attitude kept him employed in the federation for a long time... but what ultimately matters to me is how he seemed in the ring.

Whether as Phinneas Godwin, Ministry Minion, as himself in Southern Justice, even as Naked Mideon... no matter the character, he stunk up the ring. He has very little in the way of workrate, he always looked like an overweight goof, and matches involving him proved to be bathroom breaks in any PPV.

Now, maybe we'll be fortunate enough that Viscera will be released too. A man whose only claims to fame are being overweight and clumsy doesn't warrant a place on TV.

(Mind you, I understand the WWF are interested in signing Rhino from ECW... so I guess they still think low-workrate no-sellers have a place in the fed.)

Add Brian Armstrong (Jesse "Road Dogg"' Jammes) to the list of Former WWF Stars; Jim Ross on his Ross Report on WWF.com confirmed that the Dogg has been released. I guess coming to work stoned can do that...

The door is open for him to return someday when he's cleaned up his act. Personally, I won't shed a tear; he stopped being interesting to watch (to me) before the New Age Outlaws began.

Ross in a sense listed it was one of the changes to make the product seem less stale; call me crazy, but I'd think trying to do something new with the folks you have, instead of getting new ones, could do that...