Earlier this year, Fightful sought to publish some positive news amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Around that time, we started reaching out to dozens of WWE sources to ask them who had been working hard to improve. Responses at that point were scattered, but in recent months have accelerated. Sadly, a few of the names mentioned have since been released.
Fightful Select reported the first batch of names from a tag team division that is dwindling before our eyes.
Kind of a sad time to start the "brass ring" series, considering they were just released, but many spoke highly of Rezar and Akam
Fightful polled a series of WWE wrestlers about who among their peers they've noticed working to improve their spots and get better in the ring. After we'd hear a name, we'd end up conferring with other members of the roster to see how they felt.
"AOP and Street Profits work very hard and try to get better every week, and they're all good guys," said one wrestler on the Raw brand back in March, around the time Rezar ended up getting injured.
"Akam should still be on TV," said another WWE employee before the release. "He was improving dramatically and was really easy to work with. They actually both have really good backgrounds and are safe to work with and have shown me a few things."
As for the Street Profits, another on the Smackdown roster said that they'd love to have them and Bianca Belair on their brand.
We'll have more stories in the Brass Ring series in the coming weeks.
This story originally ran on our Fightful Select premium service, which you can subscribe to at this link. It later appeared in the Fightful Wrestling Weekly, which releases every Tuesday on Fightful Wrestling