Dean Malenko Reportedly Done With WWE, B-Team Moved to SmackDown

Dean Ambrose is apparently not the only person named Dean who finished up his time with WWE this month. It has since been reported that longtime backstage agent Dean Malenko has just wrapped up his WWE tenure as well. Malenko has been working as a backstage producer for the company for a number of years but he decided to give up the gig not too long ago. The news concerning Malenko’s departure was first broken by Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso and has since been confirmed by Pro Wrestling Sheet as well. As of right now, there is no word on why Malenko decided to quit the company, and neither WWE nor Malenko himself have commented on the rumors just yet, but that may change very soon.
The reports claim that Malenko recently quit his position after eight years of working behind the scenes for the promotion. Malenko made a name for himself as a wrestler when he competed in ECW and WCW, and he also had a run with WWE. After retiring from the ring, Malenko began working for WWE in various backstage roles. WWE did hire a slew of new backstage producers earlier this year such as the former Abyss and Shane “The Hurricane” Helms, but Malenko is far from the only person working behind the curtain to leave WWE this year. Arn Anderson was fired from his backstage producer role earlier this year, and R.D. Evans and Road Dogg also gave up their creative jobs with WWE earlier this month. Be sure to stay tuned for additional updates on Malenko’s status with WWE.
Although WWE’s annual Superstar Shakeup was supposed to take place over the course of last week, WWE has continue to make slight tweaks to the Raw and SmackDown rosters. The trend continued yesterday when Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas were moved over to SmackDown. Both of their profiles have been moved to the SmackDown roster section on WWE.com, confirming the brand change. Axel and Dallas experienced success on Raw last year when they went on a brief winning streak. They even managed to win the Raw Tag Team Championships and held onto them for a couple of weeks. Dallas and Axel, known as The B-Team, will now compete on Tuesday nights against teams such as The Hardy Boyz, The New Day, and more.