‘The Numbers Are Horrible’ – Ryback On WWE Contracts

Ryback has never been afraid to come out and give his opinion on WWE or its business practices, sharing stories from his time with the promotion and what he feels are the problems with how WWE does business.

On his podcast Conversations With The Big Guy, Ryback when speaking with Wrestling Inc’s Raj Giri talked about how the royalties WWE performers receive are “horrible” and how there is no room for negotiation with them.

“The numbers are in the contract and the numbers are completely screwed up, the numbers are horrible.

Now, outside of someone like Brock that negotiated a better deal and owns his name, trademarks, different things and was able to negotiate a better deal, 90 percent of the talent does not have the power to negotiate a better deal.

And, they keep them in a position where they don’t have any negotiating power. If you do question your percentages, they will just pick someone else.

The thing is a $30 t-shirt they are selling, you’re making a dollar or under a dollar a shirt, somewhere in that vicinity.

Wrestlers, as independent contractors should be able to negotiate. WWE will say anyone can negotiate, I can tell you first hand that if you do that, you’re not going to make any money and you’re not going to be used.

So, everybody signs the contract and just goes along with it because that is what everyone else has done.”

“One of the reasons they say they do that is to ease the expenses of the new talent, to get them adjusted to life on the road. It’s kind of a way to trick your talent.

It’s not just NXT, that has been around for a long time. When we came up in Nexus we all had that. When I came back as Ryback, I didn’t have that.

It’s a way to not show talent the evil side of what their expenses are going to be. Then when they renegotiate a contract, the talent doesn’t have an idea how much that money is going to be and what that is going to cost them.

So, they don’t negotiate for a higher contract. They just look and go ‘Woah, I’m making this right now and I’m going to get $60 thousand more.’

That $60 thousand is going to go to your expenses. There is always a rhyme and a reason to everything they do there and that is one of them.”

WrestleTalk would like to thank Wrestling Inc. for the transcription