WWE Releases Melina, Kozlov, Masters, DH Smith & Gail Kim

WWE made several big cuts on Friday to the rosters of Raw, Smackdown, Superstars and NXT. The latest to be released from their duties with the company and wished well in future endeavors: Vladimir Kozlov, Chris Masters, Melina, Gail Kim and DH Smith.

While none of those released were in pursuit of any major championship gold, it seems Kozlov and Masters were semi-important in current roles. Masters had seemed to be on the upswing with victories over the likes of Drew McIntyre, Tyler Reks and Jack Swagger. It may have been that WWE was trying to audition Masters to see if the fans would get behind him enough. Masters just recently lost via submission to Jack Swagger on Superstars this past week.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Kozlov had two victories this past week. On NXT he defeated JTG, and then on Superstars he defeated Primo. Quite a way to go out for the Moscow Mauler, who is a former tag champion. He was involved in a mini-feud with JTG on NXT, and was a former pro mentor. Apparently, WWE had no more use for the big man, which means he'll probably wind up in TNA with the others.

Gail Kim, Melina and DH Smith. There's not much to be said of them right now as WWE just wasn't using them much at all. Every once in a while they'd show up in a match, but weren't part of any interesting stories or plots. All of these released superstars and divas were title holders at one point during their careers though, and are likely to show up with TNA at some point.

Best of luck to all five competitors with their future work, because once again WWE's loss is TNA's gain!

The good news is there are still plenty of WWE Superstars and Divas working. One of which is Maryse, as seen in her latest photo shoot video (HOT)!