The release of The Highlanders was a combination of many things. First there was the incident in Orlando during WrestleMania weekend when Robbie showed up at the live TNA iMPACT! taping and was shown on camera. He was disciplined by WWE over the matter and was in trouble ever since. They also didn't want to cut one or the other with Rory out with an injury. They initially were praised during their early WWE run by people like Ed Koskey and Fit Finlay.

Rory issued a statement on his MySpace page noting he had no regrets, but wished things had turned out better and put over John Laurinaitis. He credited WWE for having a better living lifestyle now than he did before and acknowledged from day one that their gimmicks would be hard to break out of if if they ever did.