WWE: John Laurinaitis out as Senior Vice President of Talent Relations

Although the writing has been on the wall for some time, dating all the way back to early June when Triple H took over John Laurinaitis' job as Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, WWE has made it official.

On its website last night, the company confirmed that Laurinaitis would no longer serve in the talent relations department, instead working only as an agent backstage:

Effective immediately, John Laurinaitis is resigning from his position as Senior Vice President of Talent Operations. Following his very public firing at June’s No Way Out, Laurinaitis continued to work behind-the-scenes in his corporate role. After eight years of service in talent relations, he’s "burned out" and now hopes to concentrate on what he knows best: putting together matches and working with WWE talent as a producer.

It's been well known for some time that Triple H was never a fan of "Ace" and his track record as far as finding stars has been abysmal, certainly nowhere near the level of his predecessor, Jim Ross. In fact, Laurinaitis has been compared unfavorably to him for some time now and it was only a matter of time before his duties were scaled back enough to make the move official.

In an interesting twist, it was announced on the main WWE.com website instead of the corporate one. Generally speaking, the former is used to help advance storylines while the latter deals with business matters rooted completely in reality.

Still, Laurinaitis' workload is now a lot lighter, although he will continue traveling with the company.