WWE Releases Helms, Burchill & Maria

Earlier on Friday, WWE announced the release of three of its superstars. Former ECW wrestlers Gregory "Hurricane" Helms and Paul "The Ripper" Burchill were let go in addition to Smackdown diva Maria Kanellis. While Helms and Burchill hadn't been seen for several weeks on the air, Maria was recently seen as part of a small storyline on Smackdown involving Matt Hardy. She fought in several mixed gender tag matches along with Hardy and The Great Khali against the Hart Dynasty on both Smackdown and Superstars.

Each of the superstars' release notices on WWE.com followed the usual format:

"WWE has come to terms on the release of _____ as of today February 26, 2010. We wish _____ the best in all future endeavors."

Gregory Helms was with WWE since 2001, after appearing in WCW from 99-01. His Hurricane character was a popular superhero, which also incorporated Molly Holly, Rosey and Stacey Keibler at various times. Hurricane held the tag titles twice, once with Kane, once with Rosey, as well as holding the WWE Cruiserweight title twice, European title once and Hardcore title also one time. Helms was last seen in the ring doing an interview of Ezekiel Jackson. The interview came just a day or so after news of Helms' arrest during a drunken taxi ride with Chris Jericho and Matt Hardy. William Regal who was in the ring during the spot, commented about Helms' recent trouble. Helms noted during the interview he was going to put the incident behind him and move on. He ended up getting slammed to the mat by Jackson to end the segment. Helms wasn't seen in any matches after that.

Paul Burchill came to WWE in 2005 and played a pirate character early on. He eventually moved on from that and started appearing with his on-air sister, Katie Lea. Burchill and Helms had been involved in a rivalry on the now-removed ECW show on SyFy. It involved Burchill trying to unmask The Hurricane and expose that he was really Gregory Helms. They even had a match in which Helms retired Burchill from the show. Not long after, Burchill re-appeared as a masked villain type character named "The Ripper". The Ripper was unmasked by Hurricane and Burchill was forced to leave again. Soon after that, Katie Lea Burchill appeared as a new diva on Raw. There's no news of Katie Lea being released as of yet. It appears that with the closing down of ECW, Helms and Burchill had nowhere else to go with WWE.

The most shocking of the three releases might be that of Maria Kanellis, who was recently promoted as part of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" by Donald Trump. She's been with WWE since back in 2004-05 as a losing contestant in the diva search, then a backstage interviewer, and eventually a girlfriend/valet of several wrestlers including Santino Marella, Dolph Ziggler and Matt Hardy. She's been a member of the Raw and Smackdown rosters during her career which also included posing for the 2008 Playboy cover and spread. On Smackdown, Maria was introduced by Matt Hardy as his recent Valentine, and the two were considered a couple. After a loss in the ring on Smackdown, Maria blamed herself for the loss. Hardy consoled her, but Maria didn't seem happy and ended up pushing past fellow divas Michelle McCool and Layla backstage. According to her wiki entry, Mara's got a debut album called "Sevin Sins" releasing on April 13th, so that may explain her being let go to work on the music career.

With the release of these three, it seems that once again WWE's loss is TNA's gain. It won't be surprising to see one or all three of these re-surface on TNA's show in the near future.