What's the story?
On a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer talked about the reason the WWE released 2015 Tough Enough winner Josh Bredl.
In case you didn't know...
Four wrestlers from the 2015 edition of Tough Enough currently wrestle in major promotions. Daria Berenato finished 11th in the sixth season and is now in NXT known as Sonya Deville. Patrick Clark finished 9th and is on NXT as the Velveteen Dream.
Chelsea Green finished 7th and is known as Laurel Van Ness in Impact Wrestling, she'll be wrestling for the vacant Impact Knockouts Championship soon. Finally, Amanda Saccomanno finished 3rd and is currently in NXT as Mandy Rose.
The heart of the matter
Meltzer is reporting that Bredl suffered a major concussion or potentially multiple concussions and the feeling with management was that he would never return to the company.
To alleviate future legal issues for the WWE, they kept him under contract for this long. They felt like enough time passed to make the decision to release him. Meltzer states that the cut was inevitable for a long time.
Bredl won the 2015 edition of Tough Enough along with a $250k contract. He would be repackaged as Bronson Matthews, and even though he appeared on camera a couple of times on NXT, he never really got started with a role on television.
Parallels from history
The winners of the past few editions of Tough Enough have not fared well in the WWE or professional wrestling in general.
The 2010 Tough Enough winner Andy Leavine's career never left Florida Championship Wrestling and the WWE released him in 2012. The winner of the fourth season of Tough Enough in 2004 was Daniel Puder, and he only lasted in the WWE less than a year.
Author's take
I watched the entire 2015 season of Tough Enough and obviously Josh had all the physical tools to succeed, but in pro wrestling that only gets you so far. He really lacked in the charisma department, but was getting a little better, it was just unfortunate that injuries kept him from being able to succeed.
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