2 Likes
Comrade Paige? Appropriately in red and black too.
America and her irrational fear of everything that slightly helps a worker against his employer. As a European I will never get that.
8 Likes
I’m curious how the employer is helping here, when they are fundamentally devaluing the work done as a professional wrestler?
To be a professional wrestler in the WWE now includes getting the same pay for more work or work outside of the initial scope of the contract for services.
1 Like
Zelina Vega commented on Paiges tweet, and I really think it’s the women who will have to make a stand here.
The women obviously get paid a lot less, especially midcard women, and Twitch could be a big difference maker for them.
2 Likes
I don’t want to spark a backlash here…but let’s say a female performer created an Only Fans…is WWE going to claim they deserve a cut of that revenue, because that would turn WWE into something I don’t think they wan to be? 
2 Likes
I saw an Interview with John Cena not long ago which was a couple years old. He said he has to share some of his money which he makes with his movies with WWE and he thinks it is okay because WWE made him famous. Kind of the same thing right? I guess this is what they always told and tell them. “We made you, pay up”
WWE doesn’t employ them. That is what they refuse to accept.
Or what if an Indy talent has a popular OnlyFans or Twitch - why on earth would they want to sign with WWE and give all that up for an “opportunity”?
1 Like
One of the under radar things about this situation is WWE “launching their own larger scale Twitch presence”.
What does this mean? Streaming 7 days a week instead of 5? Asking performers to stream on the WWE account instead of their own? WWE have had an official Twitch presence where they broadcast live talk shows, pre-shows etc. for a year or two at least. Vince clearly had no idea this platform even existed until he found out his “independent contractors” were making money without him taking a cut.
It reminds me of Tony Soprano finding out one of his guys had received inheritance from a relative and requiring his share.
1 Like
Why? Money. Money they’re unlikely to make outside of WWE.
If it was anyone important, then WWE might’ve had something to worry about. When it comes to Paige, she is lucky that’s she’s still with WWE. The only important person that’d care about any of this is AJ Styles but I don’t think he cares enough to publicly complain about bonus money.
not at al the same thing - John has a contract with WWE and they allow him to do outside work despite his contract so they share in that. We don’t know what is in that contract but I’m sure it doesn’t state, WWE will pay you to not work for WWE
Therein lies what I suggest is the dying model of WWE. First the work is devalued and then they don’t get workers anymore.
2 Likes
This sort of makes me wonder if they see this as some sort of replacement for live shows even post-Covid. If they have talent on the road for only 2-3 days a week, they probably feel like there are ways to use them the rest of the week to generate company revenue.
I don’t know if I’d say its a dying model, sure it annoys us fans and wrestlers, but ultimately these wrestlers want to make as much money as possible and for some that will always be WWE. I don’t see these performers making a stink about something like this if their downsides are higher then what they can get anywhere else by a significant margin.
Take AJ for example, from what I have read online (so take with a grain of salt) AJ makes 3.5 million/year from WWE. Even if they screw him out of 50K on his twitch, if AEW offered him say 1mil but he could keep 100% of his twitch revenue, financially speaking, WWE is still the far and away better choice.
Now for someone like Paige who reportedly makes 200K/year (again, from google so take with a grain of salt), her being screwed over for say 50K is a huge deal. Long story short, I think its the lower tier performers that are going to be hurt, however these are also the performers that don’t have as many options and therefore will still probably sign with WWE.
Please don’t take this as be defending WWE’s bullshit in anyway, I just don’t think its going to actually effect their ability to sign or re-sign the majority of talent. Where this may bite them however will be if the courts really do a deep dive on this employee/contractor scam they have been pulling off for decades.
3 Likes
You’re examples are great @kliq. And I am being hyperbolic about a dying model. It may take a few generations of talent, but Generally speaking when a service is devalued the model changes which is what I was getting at. Often times brought on by automation or technology in industry.
What’s actually cool is in this case the dying model may be the independent contractor. Maybe this all leads to full employment / ending the independent contractors charade. If that were to happen, we’d likely see downsides cut into for things like benefits and taxes but they’d at least be insured through WWE. I actually could see WWE making that switch now more than ever to curb unionization or scrutiny from an unfavorable government.
I probably could have done a way better job flushing out my thoughts on what I meant by dying model
2 Likes
This was not even mentioned on the earnings call
This stuff all might as well be on a different planet to me. Has WWE done anything to monetize yet? Or just “planning” thus far?