i can’t support wwe anymore
23,468i can’t support wwe anymore. with zelina vega's release, i can't support wwe anymore. vince mcmahon has treated his wrestlers like crap for far too long.
I was working on my video about what makes Brock Lesnar matches so good until I saw what happened to Zelina Vega. WWE announced that they released her. It seemed extremely random at the time. People could just assume that she asked for her release. But then she tweeted this last night saying that she supports unionization. With three words, it told a deeper story about the bigger issue that lies within WWE. This year has been a disaster for employees under the WWE. It’s gotten to the point where it’s difficult to even support WWE anymore. As you know, I’ve been a huge fan of WWE my entire life.
I’ve been watching RAW and SmackDown for my entire life. While I will always love the sport, I can't support Vince McMahon and the way he handles business. Even before this year, John Oliver’s special on HBO about WWE really opened my eyes. Wrestlers aren’t employees for the company. Vince McMahon hires them as contractors. The result of this is a lack of health insurance and other benefits every other sport pays for their employees like travelling expenses. The fact that WWE wrestlers are forced to pay for their hotel and rental car is insane.
Vince McMahon’s contractors put their body on the line for WWE. The least you could do is pay for their health insurance. In an interview, Alexa Bliss explained how WWE does pay for injuries that happen in the ring, but what about the long term effects that come from wrestling. Just because it doesn’t happen in a WWE ring doesn’t mean that the injuries weren’t caused from the months of physical pain. After that special with John Oliver came out, nothing really happened. Wrestling fans were upset about it for a few days. A couple tweets here and there, but nothing really came out of it. I even forgot about it myself.
Fast forward to a year later and we get to the day when WWE fired 30 employees and contractors. Names like EC3, Rusev, Kurt Angle, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, and a few dozen more were released in the middle of a pandemic. WWE seriously fired them in a time where many other wrestling promotions were closed. In fact, a lot of companies were downsizing. You’d assume that WWE was doing the same thing. No. WWE had $500 million in cash. Vince McMahon is even having one of the most profitable years of all time despite the circumstances. It’s heartless that he fired all of those names in a time where there was so much uncertainty. You have to be cold-blooded to do such a thing.
Rusev even had a story to tell about this explaining how a bunch of wrestlers were gathering together in order to unionize the wrestlers making them official employees with benefits. WWE discovered this and he claims that they fired him because of it to prove a point. They made an example of Miro. If any other wrestlers wanted to talk about wanting basic rights as an employee, they would be fired. After all of this news came out, similar to the last event, nothing happened. People tweeted about how ruthless Vince McMahon was as an owner of his company. A week later and everyone forgot about it. In just a few months later and there was another issue that popped up. Vince McMahon found out that his talent was making money on other platforms like Twitch and Cameo.
You would think that these wrestlers would want to make some extra cash on the side to pay for some of these expenses like health insurance. But no. Vince McMahon’s new executives will not allow this to happen. WWE is forcing them to shut down all of their accounts because they claim they own their names yet they are contractors. The talent reportedly have the legal rights to continue their side hustles since they are contractors. Vince McMahon doesn’t care though. If you don’t follow the boss’ rule, you will either get fired or suspended. That’s just crazy in my opinion. It’s not right. Zelina Vega is the first victim of this.
Unlike the other horrible things WWE has done, I don’t think I can just sit around and do nothing. I will only continue to criticize WWE’s business practices. I can no longer support WWE. I think Vince McMahon is a bad boss who has no empathy for his wrestlers. A former Democratic President candidate in Andrew Yang has made it his mission to expose the WWE. Yang just wants wrestlers to be treated fairly as employees with full benefits.
Andrew can’t be the only one who wants to make a difference. Us wrestling fans can’t just sit around acting like everything’s fine. We have the power to do something about it, whether that’s creating a hashtag about #WWEUnionization or simply boycotting the product by not watching. Vince McMahon has gotten away with this for far too long.
VIDEO CREDIT:
- Footage used in this video: no copyright intended under fair use
- Outro Music: No Diggity & 679 Remix