#1 The James Ellsworth character never had storyline closure
In real life, Big Cass was released from his WWE contract the day after he faced Daniel Bryan at Money In The Bank. But, from a storyline viewpoint, his name hasn’t been mentioned on WWE television since and no real or kayfabe reason has been given for his departure.
A similar thing happened in November 2017 with James Ellsworth, when he competed in a match against Becky Lynch on SmackDown Live and was released by the company later in the month, with no explanation given to fans on-screen or off-screen about why he is no longer appearing on television.
Assuming this really is the end of the Ellsworth character, at least now there is kayfabe closure on his WWE career – something that was missing when he left the company last year.