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APRIL 2019 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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26 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Am I missing something?  What does their "comprehensive" Wellness Program cover?  From what I can recall:

  • Drug testing (recreational and PEDs, except for the people they have reasons to not want to test)
  • Free drug rehab for past and present wrestlers
  • Healthcare/rehab for injuries sustained at work

Everything else, you're on your own.  How is that "comprehensive?"  Just give these fucking guys insurance.

I had this long screed typed up about how the mainstream's lack of respect or care about wrestling is a result of the business' slavish dedication to kayfabe long after the horse had left the barn.  Likewise, they're going to die on the "treat these boys like prostitutes" hill instead of bringing their labor practices into this century, aren't they?

I mean come the fuck on.  Trump's Small Business chief helps run a  company that treats its people like this and there's barely a peep to be heard.  That headline writes itself.  This is how little the mainstream cares about our beloved fake fighting.

WWE was also offering free blood testing...from Theranos.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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I would also like to jump in to point out that unionizing and becoming paid employees are two very different things.

And I would hate for WWE to have to offer pensions and health care and stuff. I mean, who else does that? ?

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The biggest problem is no matter much he may be right using arguments from the 90's and early 2000's isn't helping.  I mean using clips from Wrestling with Shadows isn't even in this century.   Not sure when the Jessie Ventura appearance was but guessing it wasn't in this century either.  The Piper stuff was in 2003 I believe.   The Punk stuff is the only recent stuff and that was 2014.    You are telling me that the death of King Kong Bundy made people get interested in this?

 

 

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34 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

She resigned a few days ago.

Thanks for the heads-up!  I just looked it up and she resigned from that job to take over as the head of his re-election Super PAC.  I should edit the original post to read "Trump hanger-on" instead.  ?

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Hagan said:

I mean, for me, the big issue is that they really should provide full health care. They can certainly afford it. The stuff with pensions or their weird contracts is less of a factor to me and you also get into the issue of is it just WWE that's held to these standards or is it every wrestling company? 

But so can most of the current talent. The issue for me are the people who had a lengthy tenure who never made any real money. They worked 100-200 nights a year, got released and now are broken down with all sorts of health issues/complications. Yes, you can argue they knew what they were getting into and WWE doesn't owe them anything, but why not try to make things right by them.  

 

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10 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

I was hoping someone more divisive than Meltzer would weight in.

 

Um, Austin.... that's *not* why people label you that...

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1 hour ago, Hagan said:

I do think there is an actual interesting debate regarding the pros and cons of unionization and the re-labeling of the independent contractor status. I also think it's fair to say that the WWE is a lot better now than it was even 10 years ago regarding treatment of past and present talent. 

I mean, for me, the big issue is that they really should provide full health care. They can certainly afford it. The stuff with pensions or their weird contracts is less of a factor to me and you also get into the issue of is it just WWE that's held to these standards or is it every wrestling company

This will always be the issue. You can't realistically just hold WWE to these standards because plenty of guys and gals are spending vast amounts of their careers outside of WWE. They are spending nearly as much time on the road and in some cases more while having the same fear of injuries holding them back from advancing wherever they work. Its just not realistic or fair for that to only be on WWE. 

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2 minutes ago, Eivion said:

This will always be the issue. You can't realistically just hold WWE to these standards because plenty of guys and gals are spending vast amounts of their careers outside of WWE. They are spending nearly as much time on the road and in some cases more while having the same fear of injuries holding them back from advancing wherever they work. Its just not realistic or fair for that to only be on WWE. 

WWE is the evilest evil in wrestling.  Of course it's fair (/sarcasm).  But it's ok that everyone's favorites are blowing up the Indy pay system!

 

That's the crux of the conversation.  You can't put the unionization and benefits solely on WWE.  We can cry monopoly all we want, but look at the schedule this weekend, there's a ton of other places to work and a brand new T-shirt wrestling company handing out six figure a year contracts to every level of the card, and they walked back their insurance claim day 1.  We're getting a bunch of companies making talent exclusive now, so those companies (Impact, RoH, AEW) should be working with the same standards we're tossing at WWE (especially with the money backing RoH and AEW).  

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On the idea that it isn't fair for WWE to be held to a higher standard than other wrestling companies: Shouldn't being a billion-dollar publicly-traded company automatically mean the WWE should be held to a different standard than other wrestling companies? I mean, it legally puts them into a completely different class of business entity, than any other company, right?

 

 

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3 minutes ago, piranesi said:

On the idea that it isn't fair for WWE to be held to a higher standard than other wrestling companies: Shouldn't being a billion-dollar publicly-traded company automatically mean the WWE should be held to a different standard than other wrestling companies? I mean, it legally puts them into a completely different class of business entity, than any other company, right?

 

 

Depends, are we holding multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies to the same standards as smaller companies in other industries?

 

And it's not like RoH and AEW don't have multi-million/billion dolllar entities backing them.

Edited by Raziel
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Just now, Raziel said:

Depends, are we holding multi-billion publicly traded companies to the same standards as smaller companies in other industries?

 

And it's not like RoH and AEW don't have multi-million/billion entities backing them.

I actually don't know...because I'm an idiot. But when a company goes public doesn't it become subject to different kinds of regulations and such? Like when you go from single to married, you suddenly have all these different rules about taxes and health and legal liabilities and stuff because you've entered "a legal institution" and are now a different kind of person.

Or in a larger sense, when a company crosses that line, doesn't it become subject to a greater scrutiny based on something like "the morality that the market is willing to enforce"?

Business dudes?

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11 minutes ago, piranesi said:

I

Or in a larger sense, when a company crosses that line, doesn't it become subject to a greater scrutiny based on something like "the morality that the market is willing to enforce"?

Business dudes?

giphy.gif

 

The only thing that publicly traded companies answer to is their shareholders, of which their board are the largest concentration, which means so long as they operate in the black, it's all good.

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1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

 

Not trying to start with the whataboutism, but wasnt the observer recently accused of not paying writers and giving out free subs in exchange for content? Would love to see what the pension plan looks like. It’s probably buried somewhere in his shed next to the Magee tape.

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So are we bringing up AEW/RoH to say that these companies should also be forced to lose "independent contractor" status for workers under exclusive contracts, or are people bringing this up to say that if pushing WWE on this front doesn't also push those companies, it shouldn't be done, because if so, hi, welcome to how this works when you're waging a PR campaign. You target the largest, most visible corporation, the one that sets the standard for the industry, rightly or wrongly, get them to do what you want, and then go after #2 and #3.

It's why people who've been pushing for $15/hr minimum wages have targeted large fast-food corporations and Amazon. Because if WWE can be profitable while treating fairly with all their workers, (and they absolutely can,) then the rest will fall in line.

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3 minutes ago, JohnnyJ said:

Not trying to start with the whataboutism, but wasnt the observer recently accused of not paying writers and giving out free subs in exchange for content? Would love to see what the pension plan looks like. It’s probably buried somewhere in his shed next to the Magee tape.

How many Observer writers have died in their 40s?

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1 minute ago, Cristobal said:

So are we bringing up AEW/RoH to say that these companies should also be forced to lose "independent contractor" status for workers under exclusive contracts, or are people bringing this up to say that if pushing WWE on this front doesn't also push those companies, it shouldn't be done, because if so, hi, welcome to how this works when you're waging a PR campaign. You target the largest, most visible corporation, the one that sets the standard for the industry, rightly or wrongly, get them to do what you want, and then go after #2 and #3.

It's why people who've been pushing for $15/hr minimum wages have targeted large fast-food corporations and Amazon. Because if WWE can be profitable while treating fairly with all their workers, (and they absolutely can,) then the rest will fall in line.

Except in this case, any company not named WWE, RoH, and AEW can't fall in line and survive.  

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