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What's the story?
Rhyno, who is a former WWF Hardcore Champion, WCW United States Champion, and SmackDown Tag Team Champion, was fired from RAW on television last week.
Rhyno was forced to compete with his teammate Heath Slater at the command of Baron Corbin who set up the stipulation that the loser of the match will be fired from RAW. After the match, the winner Heath Slater too was made into a referee instead of an in-ring competitor for the brand.
However, both men returned to in-ring competition immediately after for a Live Event.
In case you didn't know...
Baron Corbin was made the Acting General Manager of RAW after Stephanie McMahon sent Kurt Angle on an indefinite vacation and let the heel take control of RAW.
Since then, Corbin has wreaked havoc on the brand and has gone after the faces of the company while siding up with the heels.
On the last episode of RAW, he took to two veterans of the company and told them that there wasn’t enough room for both Rhyno and Slater on the brand and that one would be fired while the other would be retained. A match was set up which decided who would stay on RAW which was won by Heath Slater.
The heart of the matter
WWE made the matter more serious after taking to their social media accounts to announce that Rhyno was fired and even put out a press release for the same on their website to make it official. It was also announced that Heath Slater would now work for the brand as a referee rather than an in-ring competitor.
However, at Bueno Aires on December 6, a tag team match was set up between the teams of No Way Jose & Heath Slater & Titus O’Neil & Apollo Crews vs The Revival & Rhyno & Jinder Mahal.
This brought both Rhyno and Heath Slater back to in-ring competition, though they competed on the opposite sides. The heels lost the match to the faces and it was interesting to note that Titus O’Neil also teamed up with Apollo once again.
What's next?
It’s interesting to note that Rhyno was a part of the event and the match after being ‘fired’ only a few nights before the event. Another interesting fact is that he competed on the side of the heels for the match.
This could mean that Rhyno will indeed return to RAW vengeful and as a heel this time around and an angle between Heath Slater and Rhyno could highlight the card at WWE Main Event for a few weeks.
