When Mandy Rose lost her NXT Women's Championship to Iron Survivor Challange winner Roxanne Perez on the fallout edition of NXT, it felt like a real changing of the guard atop the proverbial card. After 413 days with the strap – the third-longest run in the title's history behind only Asuka's and Shayna Baszler's – and ten successful defenses against basically every female star on the brand, Rose had finally been bested by a performer a decade her junior and could ride off into the sunset and back onto the main roster, presumably with the rest of Toxic Attraction, Jacy Jayne and Gigi Dolin, by her side.

Or, alternatively, Shawn Michaels, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, and company could have instead opted to make a title change so they could fire Rose and allow her to take her in-ring efforts elsewhere – presumably to AEW – when her non-compete clause comes to an end at some point in the next 30-90 days.

Now granted, it wouldn't be unprecedented to see a star drop their title before walking out the door, the whole Montreal Screwjob happened because of how Bret Hart wanted to drop his strap before leaving for WCW, and that's just the most famous example. Still, after putting Rose over for well over a year as this unbeatable force who ran NXT's women's division with an iron fist, there's no way WWE would let her walk, right? Surely she'd be headed up to SmackDown with Dolan and Jayne by her side to feud with Baszler and Ronda Rousey, or over to RAW to complicate the feud between Bianca Belair's squad and Damage CTRL even further Say what you will about Rose's first run on the main roster, but she isn't the same performer who famously stood by Otis' side before starting a bottom-of-the-card tag team with Dana Brook.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your preferences, WWE decided to go with Option B, with Rose booked to lose her belt to Perez without a proper storyline or at a “Premium Live Event” because the company was uncomfortable with the content she was posting on her social media accounts, as Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp reported on Twitter.

“Fightful Select has learned that Mandy Rose has been released by WWE. WWE officials felt they were put in a tough position based on the content she was posting on her FanTime page,” SRS wrote. “They felt like it was outside of the parameters of her WWE deal.

Dave Meltzer confirmed Sapp's reporting with a tweet of his own, saying, “There's a lot to the Mandy Rose firing today, and the title change last night was a last-minute decision based on the fact she was getting fired and not the original plan. We'll talk about it a lot on tonight's show. Crazy show tonight.”

How will NXT handle Rose's absence? Only time will tell, with six full days until their next show, HBK and company will have plenty of time to whip out the whiteboards and figure something out, but needless to say, after building her up for years as a fantastic performer that even Thunder Rosa has given flowers to, another company is going to be reaping the benefits of her next run.

Mandy Rose was expecting another WWE run not to be released.

Did Mandy Rose expect to be released from WWE? No, per Bryan Alvarez, the company was aware of her FanTime page and seemed initially fine with it. If they weren't and her release had been planned for some time, well, Rose didn't appear to know it was coming, as she was talking about wanting to return to the WWE main roster as recently a November, in an interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet as transcribed by 411 Mania.

“So I think about this a lot,” Rose said. “Because I’m at a point now where it’s like, ‘Okay, who else can I beat in NXT?’ I totally don’t mind remaining the champ for a long time. But you know, I think it’s time. I think I want Gigi and Jacy to be able to experience the main roster. I think being up on Raw or Smackdown — I want to get back up there because I’m a whole different person now, I feel like. Whether or not from the outside looking in it looks like that, I just feel — I’m just so much more respected now, and that has a lot to do with it.”

“I’m like — not that I was scared to like say anything but I just feel like I’ve earned the respect over the last 386 days; whatever it’s been. Even longer, even before I won the title. But I’ve earned that respect, I know I belong. So I think I have another good run on Raw or Smackdown that I want to prove to people. And I’ve already proven, but I want to showcase myself with my girls, Toxic Attraction. I think that’s going to be really cool. We’ve shown so much over the last year and we like run NXT, and I think it’s time.”

Fortunately for Rose, her run in NXT has elevated her stock significantly, as she ranked 21st on the PWI Women’s 150 lists and, thus, could find herself in pretty high demand heading into 2023. With her former NXT pal Paige-now-Saraya now a fixture of AEW's roster who knows, maybe a call from Tony Khan could be in the woman born Amanda Rose Saccomanno's not-too-distant future, assuming, of course, it hasn't happened already.