Former WWE Star Calls For Wrestlers To Unionize

It’s been a hot topic within wrestling for years, but former WWE Superstar Alex Riley has called for professional wrestling to finally unionize.

Speaking to Booker T on his Hall of Fame podcast, Riley highlighted that while WWE compares itself to NFL, wrestlers do not unionize in the same way that footballers within the NFL are:

“I’m not here to say that I have it all figured out. However, I love the business of sports entertainment. I love the people, I love it. In that vain, they need, and I’ll say this, the WWE management is fantastic. They’ve done so much, it’s a real, it’s the NFL. The thing, when I was watching it at home, the WWE compares, and I’m going to speak about WWE because I’ve never been to AEW (and I hear they’re fantastic as well), they compare themselves to the NFL, the NBA. Those people have unions. That’s just the facts of it. The entertainment business in the United States of the America is the number one export. We are the United States of America. We are free thinking, we are free believing and we are free speaking. We lead the world in that system. When it comes to that system, that’s why we lead the world in entertainment. It’s open thought. Whatever the slang is for it, it’s a real thing.

“And I really feel the art of sports entertainment is one of the most beautiful, artistic platforms of expression that we have. I believe that it’s going to be, if it isn’t already, the future of American programming. It’s lasted longer than anything. We have AEW now, we have WWE, we have Reality of Wrestling. I was speaking to you yesterday about the Monday Night Wars. How exciting were the Monday Night Wars? I know I didn’t have a cell phone in my hand during the Monday Night Wars, I know I was tweeting, I know wasn’t on Instagram. I know my eyes were locked in and glued onto what was happening. And then you said the other day about WCW. And somebody had to go. I don’t want anybody to go. I want sports entertainment to be a pinnacle structure of programming for the United States of America for forever. Why would it not be? Why does one company, and I know they were battling for business and that was part of that generation. One of them had to go. But if it can be in a way where we’re all working together and we’re all evolving through television together, I think that’s the best way to utilize that business. I just do.”

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• Booker T
• Alex Riley
• Unionize
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