According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there was no specific incident motivating Ricky Ortiz’s WWE release. Rather, the feeling was simply that Ortiz was not going to become a top performer for the company and thus was not worth keeping on the roster.
At age 34, Ortiz simply did not strike WWE as someone able to break out. While he had shown great charisma and potential in his early developmental days as Atlas DaBone, the feeling was that he no longer had the ability to truly click with the crowd.
His in-ring ability was never praised, which certainly did not help his cause in WWE (though likely would not have mattered if he had shown tremendous star quality).
— The Observer also noted that Vic Adams was recently cut from WWE developmental.