Day 35: And Vince laughs...

• So a couple days after you literally pull an Animal Farm and get your business declared essential...
• Vince McMahon has fired, as a massive cost-cutting move, no less than 17 wrestlers, at least one referee, at least one announcer, and a slew of backstage producers.
• And, when you look at it as a wrestling fan, a lot of these people needed to go.

1. Drake Maverick was a low-level joke character in the 24/7 storyline.
2. Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder.  No real surprise about these two either.  Joke/jobber level tag team who was definitely well past shelf life.
3. Anderson and Gallows.  Brought in in that NJPW talent raid which got them AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura -- and done absolutely NOTHING with.
4. Heath Slater.  Probably the ultimate joke/jobber guy on Raw or Smackdown.
5. Primo and Epico.  Hadn't been off house shows in YEARS.
6. Mike and Maria Kanellis.  The cuckolding storyline which ended in the lap of Bobby Lashley started HERE.
7. Lio Rush had gotten some heat in the back and was thrown off TV for a while, so no big loss there.
8. About the one real loss in the group, wrestler-wise, is Rusev.  Another part of that cuckolding story, it was clear that Vince had little in mind for the Bulgarian Brute and he was not long for the company.
9. And then the other real wrestler loss was Kairi Sane, who had just wrapped a run as half the women's tag team champions, but had been injured for a good part of that run.
10. And then the producers.  In short, basically who's left???  Kurt Angle was working as a producer, but pretty much almost all the name producers on the mid-level or the like were released today en masse...

Vince McMahon is an asshole, because it's clear this day should've come in a far more job-friendly environment than today's.  The fact is, this guy had most of the wrestlers on this list to prevent them (especially the likes of Rusev or Sane) getting over in Tony Khan's AEW.

But to do this NOW, especially after you pull the Animal Farm "more equal than others" bullshit days ago to get your shows back to live status...

• Olbermann: 

Thurber’s bitter satire of people who can’t tell the difference between a genius and a con man, “Something To Say,” plus the fable “The Birds And Thr Foxes” highlight tonight’s 24th #Thurbercast https://t.co/ENM88w5Flg

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) April 16, 2020

• US Soccer has terminated it's youth academy.
• Dr. Fauci says that any continuation of sports will be fanless.  Duh.  

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Couple of sports anniversaries today:

35 years since the first round of all-time -- part of the three-round classic that was Hearns-Hagler.

55 years since the famous "Havlicek stole the ball!" call...

https://t.co/vjlHqD8VG0. 55 years ago today one of the greatest calls in sports history. I was lucky to have Johnny Most teach me how to broadcast basketball. #havlicekstoletheball pic.twitter.com/xW1SiALLeL

— Steve Holman (@RealVoiceofHawk) April 15, 2020