WWE releases Curtis Axel

After spending nearly his entire career within WWE, Curtis Axel (aka Joe Hennig) has been released from the company.

The 40-year-old hadn’t wrestled on TV since February 28th when he lost to Daniel Bryan on SmackDown. Before that, he and Bo Dallas were part of The B Team who last appeared at the October Crown Jewel show in the World Cup tag team turmoil match.

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After being trained by his father Curt Hennig, Harley Race, and Brad Rheingans, the grandson of Larry Hennig signed with WWE in 2007 after a short time in World League Wrestling. He spent nearly four years in developmental in Florida Championship Wrestling before competing on the second season of NXT under the name Michael McGillicutty. 

After a WWE tag title run with David Otunga, he returned to NXT for several years and was called up again in 2013 under the Axel name and with Paul Heyman as a manager. Through the subsequent years, he was packaged with several teams and gimmicks including RybAxel (with Ryback), The Social Outcasts, The Meta Powers (with Damien Sandow), the Miztourage, and finally, the B Team with which he also held the Raw tag team titles.

As of this writing, Axel hasn’t posted about the release on social media.