Dakota Kai was among the NXT names to be let go by WWE on Friday, but her release wasn’t entirely surprising internally.
Fightful reported this afternoon that her departure was coming as she had already made it known that she was not interested in renewing her contract.
The writing on the wall for her seemingly happened once Triple H was no longer running NXT when he stepped away due to his cardiac event. Before he took time off, she was one of the featured acts on the roster until NXT was rebranded as NXT 2.0. In recent weeks, she reunited with Raquel Rodriguez as they won the Women’s Tag Team Titles at Stand & Deliver only to lose them back to Toxic Attraction a few days later as Raquel was recently called up to the main roster and sent to SmackDown.
Kai’s last match came on April 12th when she lost to NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose. She is under a 30-day non-compete clause so it will be another month until she’s free and clear to sign with another promotion.
Malcolm Bivens, who was also let go, was expecting to leave the company as he was convinced to sign an extension last year when The Diamond Mine stable was formed. However, this past February, he declined to sign a new deal.