The TV partner wants ratings. This is wrestling. The blew up Vince McMahon once. A complete turnover of roster would be awesome actually.
Do they really need 200 guys? And a billion hours every week? Why couldn’t they have a mixture of contracted and independent contractors? It’s not impossible.
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So the top guys like Roman and Cena get health coverage and the Revival get nothing 
so basically what it is today?
And not they don’t need 200 guys and 3 performance centers but they do employ a lot more independent contractors with livable wages so maybe we should consider that before cutting half the roster so those retained can be paid as employees
you just pointed out why wrestlers will never say anything. You called for current wrestlers to talk about the issue if its really that bad. Its never going to happen and you very accurately showed why.
Yea, Bray is working so much right now…
How many times have we commented on how people will just disappear for an extended period. At least if they were true independent contractors they could get work elsewhere in the downtime.
Bottom line is its at best skirting the edges of law.
Let’s face it, if the situation was that bad and wrestlers weren’t happy with the situation they were in, they would just leave or just not renew with the company. Look at recent exemple with tye dillenger and hideo itami. They got tired of the system and left. Gallow and anderson are waiting for their contract to run out before deciding was their next move is.
The point is, WWE for all there faults in this area do treat their talents like employee, they don’t have to take care of the health of the performers but they do, they don’t have to protect them from themselves but they do, they don’t have to take care of them when they leave the company or retires but they do.
That’s more that your average wrestling company does for their wrestlers. Does ROH or new japan or any other b level wrestling company willing to do as much for their talents as wwe does for them. Hell no.
Oliver saw how popular is show was when he did his piece last november on wwe going to saudi arabia and he thought with mania happening this week, it would be a great way to get a ratings spike for his show. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a good piece but it was the same old outsiders piece that peoples that don’t follow wrestling will do to make a name for themselves.
This reminded me of when everybody was covering wwe when chris benoit died. You had a ton of journalist trying to blame WWE for what happened and nobody bother to do some research before doing a report on this. Same thing here, oliver decided to put that on his show without doing research and wwe could pretty much argue every point he make and actually win the argument on all points.
Brilliant observation.
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You guys seem to want to only care about whats best for WWE. Personally, I’d rather have a healthy entire industry. There’s enough room for both.
Monopolies are not good.
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Actually one that totally misses the point of an ad free program like Last Week Tonight. HBO is contingent on subscribers more so than week-to-week viewership figures. Do you see commercial inventory on their show? Did they advertise this ahead of time to lure in viewership?
Seriously, the week the Mueller Report is dominating the news and they opted to dedicate the majority of their show to wrestling tells me their mindset was the complete opposite when it came to a story that would resonate with the most people.
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The situation is certainly not as terrible or dire as John Oliver outlined, nor is it a wonderful as WWE claims it to be. With that being said, I will always side with the athletes that are out there performing before I side with billionaire owners, this goes for sports and any form of entertainment, or any form of anything really. John Oliver’s piece was one sided, but to simply say they are adults and they signed a contract is very simplistic. A union would be great, collective bargaining would be great, and it would all create a more secure environment for the athletes. When WWE is holding pretty much all of the bargaining power, sadly, many wrestlers have to simply deal with some kind of regular income where they can be released at any moment, or go on the indy scene where nothing is guaranteed.
Anyway, the situation is incredibly nuanced beyond what we know as fans. But, the wrestlers are certainly getting the short end of the stick if you aren’t a top performer, and those are the people that unions, or being employees, etc. would protect.
In a digital age, a viral video like this carries its own value. As you and Wai alluded to, it was made extremely available for public consumption, in front of the typical pay wall. It garners coverage in outlets like The Hollywood Reporter and MSM (main stream media), and stands out amongst everyone’s Mueller coverage. Content like this serves not just to draw viewers, but heighten visibility of somebody like Oliver who otherwise exists behind a paywall. That it is different and unique for his standard audience is an attempt to gain such traction with people who otherwise would not subscribe to HBO Go or seek out the video where available.
The value in something that increases visibility and can go viral is more than Ad dollars. We know that by the way companies tout social media engagement. HBO is no different and with Game of Thrones about to redebut, what better way to draw in an audience accustomed to the subscription model than to go after a rabid wrestling fan base.
Come for the Wrestling video, stay for Game of Thrones final season. It’s a great strategy to drive subscribers when you have something to hook them with in a few weeks.
What never ceases to amaze me is how outlets will go to the well of Wrestling to increase traffic and generate buzz utilizing a fan base that routinely consumes and gravitates to any non-traditional coverage of Wrestling.
UPDATE: 4.2 million views on the official YouTube page of Last Week Tonight in one day. Now I don’t know to the extent HBO benefits from that but it is up, for free, getting tons of traffic, and I doubt HBO is hurt by it. Compared to other videos on the Youtube page, that is over 50% the views his videos do in a several weeks.
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People claiming WWE are perfect when it comes to treating their talent are obviously in denial but I don’t think there’s been anyone other than the WWE who’s been saying that.
People claiming Last Week Tonight presented a good argument outlining WWE’s relationship with its talent are being disingenuous and unfortunately there are a lot of people that are saying that.
Reality is that it was a very simplistic, poorly put together argument presented in a way which would entertain moreso than it would inform. I guess we can call it “Journalism Entertainment”…
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Thankfully, if this episode did anything, it brought to light a very real issue out there for many wrestlers. Whether or not anything comes of it is another story all together, but at least this has been brought to the general public and more people are aware.
i feel like this will go the same way is WWE going to saudi arabia as gone, nowhere and will be forgotten by next week. The fun part of this is how he pretty much told just one side of the story, kinda like if he had a grudge against WWE for some reason. Also the fact that WWE invited him to mania to see for himself that some of his claim where wrong and he declined the invite kinda tell me that he’s not really interested in reporting the whole story and this was just a cheap attempt of making a name for himself during mania week.
He did brought light of a real issue in wrestling as pretty much everybody not just in wrestling but in pretty much any contact sport should be considered employees and have a union representing them but the problem with that is that while the bottom of the card guys would want to unionized and have thing change, the mid card and main event guys won’t want to join because let’s face it, they make a ton of money, are being taken care off by the company without having the hassle of dealing with all the headache that being treated like a employee has.
The miz was interviewed by sports illustrated and was ask about the oliver piece. He pretty much said what anybody in his position would say, he’s been in the company for 13 years, made a boat load of money, got a lot of opportunities, met his wife in WWE, now they have a child together and he’s getting movies and tv show deals, so they were really good to him, so why rock the boat. Same went with Big show when he was ask about this. He pretty much said that he knew what he was signing for when he started wrestling, that the business as change and that WWE is taking cares of his performers. So that’s saying a lot.
If you look at it from the point of view of John Oliver, the guy was disappointed that his last report on WWE went nowhere, and his job isn’t to tell a complete story, it’s to just tell to most sensational story he can tell, even if he doesn’t have all the facts before telling it. This will pretty much go away in a week as nobody really care about the inner working of WWE and most mainstream outlet will be talking about mania and how rousey lost the title at mania on sunday.