BREAKING: WWE releases Big Cass

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Jeff Hardy (c) & Matt Hardy (c) defeat Big Cass & Enzo Amore, Cesaro & Sheamus (in Triple Threat Match). Info on the match : WWE RAW Tag Team Title (Photo via Miguel Discert - Under Creative Commons License)

In a shocking statement Tuesday, WWE announced it has released William Morrissey, a.k.a Big Cass.

The news comes less than 48 hours after Cass faced Daniel Bryan at the Money In The Bank pay-per-view.

Cass was one of WWE’s more popular superstars in NXT, teaming with Enzo Amore. The duo never won the tag team titles despite being one of the more popular tag teams in recent memory.

It was on this day a year ago when Cass turned his back on Amore, revealing himself as Amore’s secret attacker. This led to the two having a match, which Cass won. This then led to a feud with Big Show, which Cass prevailed from as well.

On the Monday after Summerslam last year, Cass tore his ACL in a match against Amore. This sidelined the big man until after WrestleMania, where he returned to challenge Bryan. Cass lost both of his PPV matches to Bryan, including this past Sunday at MITB.

No word yet as to why Cass was released. It was reported by Pro Wrestling Sheet last month that WWE officials were upset at Cass for going against the script during a promo with a “little person” on SmackDown Live. He wasn’t supposed to beat down the actor after the big boot, but went against those orders. Cass lost five days later to Bryan at Backlash and wasn’t featured on TV the next week.

It’s worth noting that the official WWE press release didn’t mention the “best of luck in your future endeavors” line, which WWE usually uses when someone is released. Whether that’s “something” or “nothing” is up in the air, but if it is “something,” then this release may not have been clean.